Am.  Tour.  Pharm. 
Dec,  1918. 
Stems  in  Belladonna  Herb. 
839 
reduced  by  eliminating  the  expensive  hand  labor  involved  in  picking 
the  individual  leaves.  The  change  has  aided  greatly  in  stimulating 
the  production  of  belladonna  in  the  United  States. 
In  connection  with  this  change  the  question  naturally  arises  as 
to  what  sized  stems  may  be  included  when  the  herb  is  cut  in  order 
to  limit  the  stems  to  10  per  cent,  of  the  total  herb,  The  inclusion  of 
the  stems  makes  harvesting  by  means  of  a  sickle  or  large  machinery 
possible,  but  by  allowing  only  10  per  cent,  of  stems  it  becomes  neces- 
sary in  most  cases  to  strip  the  material  by  hand  in  order  to  eliminate 
the  larger  stems.  If  it  should  be  found  that  the  inclusion  of  a  greater 
percentage  of  stems  does  not  greatly  lower  the  therapeutic  quality 
of  the  herb  it  would  seem  to  be  greatly  to  the  interest  of.  the  grower 
to  modify  the  official  designation  of  the  herb  to  that  extent.  It  was 
for  the  purpose  of  securing  some  data  on  these  questions  that  the 
following  experiments  were  undertaken. 
Belladonna  Herb  at  Various  Stages  of  Growth. — Sprouts  of 
belladonna  were  cut  at  eight  different  stages  of  growth.  The  sprouts 
were  cut  at  the  ground  and  selected  from  different  parts  of  the  field 
to  eliminate  as  far  as  possible  the  factor  of  individual  variation.  The 
sprouts  were  immediately  weighed,  a  number  of  them  were  reserved 
to  be  studied  as  whole  herb  and  the  remainder  were  separated  into 
leaves  and  stems  both  of  which  were  weighed  at  once.  All  the  parts 
were  then  allowed  to  dry  in  a  well-ventilated  room  and  finally  in  a 
hot  air  oven  at  500  C.  They  were  then  weighed  and  ground  to  a 
no.  40  powder.  A  small  quantity  of  the  powder  was  dried  over  sul- 
phuric acid  to  constant  weight  and  the  amount  of  residual  moisture 
determined.  All  the  results  in  the  tables  are  calculated  on  the  water 
free  basis.  In  Table  I  are  given  the  data  relating  to  the  proportion 
of  stems  in  the  herb. 
It  will  be  seen  from  the  table  that. the  eight  stages  represent  a 
wide  range  of  growth.  At  the  first  stage  the  sprouts  were  very  small 
and  the  stems,  while  relatively  large  in  diameter,  were  very  short. 
On  the  other  hand,  at  the  last  stage  the  stems  were  woody  and  the 
leaves  were  fewer  in  proportion.  The  moisture  content  of  the  stems 
does  not  appear  to  differ  greatly  in  the  first  seven  stages  but  in  the 
last  stage  the  pith  was  considerably  less  succulent  which  fact  is  indi- 
cated in  the  reduced  moisture  content.  In  the  leaves,  too,  the 
moisture  content  is  considerably  lower  in  the  last  stage  when  the 
larger  leaves  are  beginning  to  dry  up  somewhat.  Likewise  in  the 
whole  herb  the  percentage  of  moisture  is  considerably  reduced  in 
the  last  stage. 
