Am.  Tour.  Pharm. 
Dec,  1 918. 
}   Growing  Medicinal  Plants  in  America. 
865 
It  is,  however,  more  particularly  the  botanical  drugs  which  can 
be  grown  under  proper  scientific  control  in  the  United  States 
which  we  shall  consider.  Among  these  we  find  the  following  im- 
portant medicinal  plants :  Aconite,  belladonna,  and  stramonium,  the 
principal  source  of  atropine,  digitalis  (foxglove),  cannabis  indica  or 
Indian  hemp,  the  active  principal  of  which  is  known  in  India  as 
hashish,  the  properties  of  which  the  elder  Dumas  so  beautifully  mis- 
describes  in  "The  Count  of  Monte  Cristo." 
Fig.  1.    Planting  belladonna  seedlings  at  the  rate  of  sixty  to  the  minute. 
Among  our  native  medicinal  plants  we  also  use  in  fairly  large 
quantity  henbane,  rhubarb,  senna,  gentian,  golden  seal  (hydrastis), 
senega,  mandrake,  bloodroot,  arnica;  ajowan  seeds,  and  monarda 
punctata,  used  in  the  manufacture  of  thymol,  a  specific  in  the  treat- 
ment of  the  hookworm  disease,  and  many  others  too  numerous  to 
mention.  If  a  layman,  unaccustomed  to  the  study  of  such  subjects, 
were  to  pick  up  one  of  the  great  New  York  commercial  daily  news- 
papers which  quote  prices  in  the  drug  markets  and  were  to  glance 
over  the  items  quoted  he  would  probably  be  very  much  astonished 
at  the  familiar  herbs,  roots,  and  flowers  which  are  made  a  matter  of 
