1 1 2  Chlorophyl  Complexities.  { Febmary'i^Q"?: 
duces  the  chlorophyl  facilitates  the  formation  or  other  organic 
substances  which  impart  to  the  green  potato  its  disagreeable  taste. 
Experience  has  taught  us  that  potatoes  of  a  green  color  are  not  de- 
sirable as  food;  naturally  we  have  associated  color  with  taste  un- 
til we  have  grown  to  believe  that  the  innocent  chlorophyl  is  the 
cause  of  the  unpalatable  green  potato. 
Although  our  medicinal  plants  contain  chlorophyl  in  large 
amounts,  there  is  in  one  sense  no  connection  between  this  green 
coloring  matter  and  the  proximate  medicinal  agent.  The  chloro- 
phyl of  lobelia,  belladonna,  hyoscyamus,  etc.,  like  that  of  the  potato 
and  celery,  is  formed  under  the  influence  of  sunlight,  which  also 
favors,  in  a  majority  of  cases,  the  production  of  those  substances 
from  which  the  plant  derives  the  power  of  exerting  upon  the  ani- 
mal economy  its  peculiar  action.  There  is  no  real  connection. 
Conditions  which  favor  the  generation  of  chlorophyl  are  favorable 
to  the  formation  of  a  majority  of  the  active  principles  of  our  plants, 
from  which  fact  we  naturally  prejudge,  arguing  that  when  a  plant 
has  arrived  at  maturity  it  should  be  gathered  and  cured  very  care- 
fully, so  as  to  preserve  the  green  color. 
191 9.  Chlorophyl  Complexities  Untangled. — Forty-three  years 
ago  (1876)  the  foregoing,  by  the  present  writer,  was  published  in 
the  Eclectic  Medical  Journal.  Time  and  again  since  that  has  it 
been  necessary,  in  correspondence  as  well  as  in  print,  to  repeat 
the  substance  of  that  contribution.  Physicians,  as  well  as  pharma- 
cists, are  continually  concerned  with  this  chlorophyl  problem, 
the  consideration  of  which  is  seemingly  as  important  to-day  as  in 
times  gone  by. 
To  the  foregoing  the  writer  would  now  add  that  seemingly,  in 
the  development  of  chlorophyl  in  all  plants  investigated  by  him- 
self, other  products  are  with  the  chlorophyl  very  intimately  asso- 
ciated, this  either  by  adhesion  or  mechanical  combination,  all  of 
which  in  natural  setting  are  colloidal.  Chief  among  these  we  find 
certain  vegetable  waxes,  fats  and  oils,  prevailing  generally  through- 
out the  vegetable  kingdom,  and  seemingly  inert  therapeutically. 
Whether  they  are  formed  as  a  needful  accompaniment  to  chloro- 
phyl, or  as  by-products  generated  by  and  with  the  chlorophyl,  is, 
in  the  direction  of  this  paper,  unimportant.  And  yet  as  concerns 
their  presence  and  their  influence. on  pharmaceutical  preparations, 
they  assume  importance  to  a  degree  but  yet  imperfectly  under- 
stood. 
