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ON NARCOTIC PLANTS IN THE UNITED STATES. 
treated of, none of them have recognized the presence of more 
than one resin. Wiggers and Pardue both attribute the medicinal 
activity of ergot to its presence. They were evidently not aware 
of the existence of these resins. 
M. Pardue's description of the oil after treatment with alcohol, 
entirely to deprive it of resinous matter, viz : that it has then 
scarcely any color, a bland, sweet taste, and is medicinally inert, 
I found to be correct so far as the taste and color are concerned, 
but I am ignorant of its therapeutical properties. 
With regard to the physical nature of ergot, the conclusion 
drawn from my examination is, that it is a fungus. There is 
still, however, an open field for the investigation of ergot, but I 
must, at present, abandon the subject, content with having at least 
in some degree contracted its limits by ray investigation, wishing 
others success in any similar undertaking. 
ON NARCOTIC PLANTS GROWN IN THE UNITED STATES, AND 
ON THEIR MEDICINAL VALUE COMPARED WITH THOSE OF 
EUROPEAN GROWTH. 
(Being an Inaugural Thesis presented to the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy.) 
By Alfred Jones. 
It is a fact of no small interest to the pharmaceutist of this 
country, that whilst the plants which furnish the physician with a 
number of his most important remedial agents, grow in abundance 
almost at our own doors, he depends for them on a country more 
than three thousand miles distant. Among these we find Bella- 
donna, Hyoscyamus, Conium, and Digitalis If we attempt to 
trace this preference to its cause, two questions at once arise. 
First, is it from a want of care and pharmaceutical skill in the 
preparation of the medicines for exhibition ; and, secondly, is it 
from our climate not being suited to the full developement of the 
activity of the plants, or from these two causes combined ? 
To answer the first question, we must examine the miserable 
preparations which under the names of "Extract of Conium," etc., 
