156  Lands  Where  Drugs  Grow.         { AmAP°rur;i9ooarm' 
would  mean  that  the  plant  might  be  found  alike  in  the  tropical,  the 
torrid,  the  temperate,  and  possibly  the  frigid  zone;  indeed,  that  it 
could  be  gathered  anywhere  from  the  Gulf  to  Van  Diemen's  Land. 
For  the  lack  of  something  better  we  often  accept  the  shop  label  as 
authority,  and  reason  out  that  all  the  root  found  in  the  drawer 
marked  "  Rheum  Turk  "  comes  from  Turkey  ;  that  the  senna  comes 
from  Egypt,  and  that  "Spanish  Flies  "  come  from  Spain. 
At  best  we  little  know  the  story  of  the  life  and  preparation  of  the 
plants  comprised  in  our  Materia  Medica.  The  methods  by  which 
our  drugs  are  cultivated,  gathered  or  prepared  for  the  market  are 
for  the  most  part  beyond  our  observation.  The  importance  of  such 
knowledge  must  be  apparent  to  every  worker ;  the  lack  of  it  lamented 
by  all. 
During  the  manipulation  of  drugs,  who  has  not  wondered  at  the 
great  differences  of  color,  size,  shape,  texture,  and  in  the  yield  and 
quality  of  extractive  matter  or  active  principles,  the  wide  variability 
in  physiological  and  chemical  characteristics,  and  of  therapeutic 
properties  ?  The  revelations  of  the  lens  and  the  reagent  may  start 
a  train  of  thought  running  out  to  the  fields,  the  hills  and  the  forest, 
and  lead  on  to  speculation  and  inquiry  concerning  the  operations  in 
the  living  laboratory,  and  the  changes  which  may  have  taken  place 
in  the  shapeless  fragments  before  him  from  first  to  last.  Of  all  the 
questions  that  will  thus  suggest  themselves,  the  greater  number  re- 
main unanswered,  and  many  at  present  seem  unanswerable. 
Recently  I  made  a  flying  visit  to  those  parts  of  England  where, 
on  a  commercial  scale,  a  limited  number  of  medicinal  plants  are 
cultivated  or  are  gathered  in  a  wild  condition.  I  also  visited  a  por- 
tion of  the  Continent  where  the  harvesting  of  certain  drugs  attains 
the  rank  of  an  industry.  It  is  with  regret  that  I  admit  the  paucity 
of  the  information  collected.  The  most  that  can  be  claimed  is  that 
in  some  instances  the  observations  made  by  others  are  herein  con- 
firmed. A  few  errors  are  pointed  out ;  a  few  new  facts  are  pre- 
sented ;  some  of  the  problems  involved  are  restated. 
England  seemed  to  me  to  be  an  ideal  land  for  drug  culture.  A 
balmy,  equable  climate,  a  varied  and  fertile  soil,  a  rural  population 
of  intelligent  husbandmen  holding  the  experience  and  traditions  of 
many  generations.  In  certain  localities  the  culture  of  drugs  has 
been  successfully  carried  on  for  a  hundred  years  or  more. 
It  may  be  here  noted  that  farming,  as  we  know  it  in  America, 
