28 
Gardens  of  Medicinal  Plants. 
(Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
\     January,  1904. 
Canada  and  northern  Europe;  the  Indiana  gardens,  the  Central 
States  and  the  Northwest,  including  Alaska;  the  San  Francisco 
gardens,  the  Pacific  States  and  the  Orient,  including  the  Philippine 
Islands.  These  are  mere  suggestions  based  upon  a  co-operative 
idea.  The  Department  of  Agriculture  would  no  doubt  be  willing  to 
co-operate  in  maturing  such  plans. 
(e)  These  gardens  should  maintain  adequate  laboratories  of  chem- 
istry, pharmacy,  pharmacology  and  botany  for  research  work.  For 
this  purpose  the  laboratories  of  colleges  of  medicine  and  pharmacy 
as  well  as  those  of  experimental  stations,  of  manufacturing  chemists 
and  pharmacists  would  be  available. 
(f)  The  gardens  should  maintain  herbaria  and  a  museum  of 
pharmacy  and  medicine  for  the  instruction  of  students  and  the  edifi- 
cation of  the  public  in  general.  The  museum  should  contain  a 
suitably  arranged  exhibit  of  vegetable  drugs  and  their  derivatives, 
mineral  drugs,  pharmaceutical  preparations,  apparatus  and  equipment 
used  in  collecting,  preparing,  drying,  garbling,  packing,  storing  and 
shipping  vegetable  drugs;  in  fact,  everything  of  interest  bearing  on 
pharmacy  and  medicine.  The  herbarium  should  contain  carefully 
determined  specimens  of  all  plants  of  medicinal  value  and  related 
plants.  It  need  scarcely  be  stated  that  a  fairly  complete  working 
library  is  also  an  essential  to  such  gardens. 
IV.  PLANTS  TO  BE  GROWN. 
Dr.  Rodney  H.  True,  of  the  United  States  Department  of 
Agriculture,  who  is  in  charge  of  Drug  and  Medicinal  Plant  In- 
vestigations, in  a  recent  communication  made  the  following 
statement :  "  I  would  suggest  the  desirability  of  cultivating  small 
plots  of  a  large  number  of  species  of  plants  having  medicinal  prop- 
erties. (The  Government  has  published  nothing  so  far  regarding 
the  cultivation  of  drug  plants,  apart  from  a  brief  outline  covering 
the  general  plans.)  From  our  standpoint,  the  larger  the  number  of 
drug  plants  experimented  with  the  better."  In  this  the  writer 
heartily  concurs.  The  following  plants  should  be  grown  in  so  far 
as  that  is  possible :  The  official  medicinal  plants  of  all  countries ; 
important  unofficial  medicinal  plants ;  plants  reported  to  have 
medicinal  value,  as  those  used  by  savages  of  various  countries,  and 
popular  "  medicinal  herbs  "  not  yet  known  to  the  science  of  medi- 
cine and  pharmacy  ;  plants  extensively  used  as  adulterants  or  sub- 
