28 
ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 
What quantity of the article may have been thrown into the 
market, we have no means of ascertaining. 
Falsified Labels. — Under this head, it may be sufficient to 
observe, in general, that considerable quantities of some of the 
rarer chemicals, prepared in this country, and, for anything 
that is known to the contrary, equal to any made abroad, are 
constantly vended under labels asserting them to be from 
French houses. This falsity is not confined to one city. It 
may generally be discovered by the careful scrutiny of an 
eye accustomed to the French labels. But, by the country 
druggist or physician, with whom chiefly the deception is 
intended to take effect, it is scarcely probable that it will often 
be detected. It cannot be said to be an evil endangering the 
health of the community, except in so far as it indicates a 
want of sound principle on the part of those who have our 
lives in their hands; but, as a falsehood of extensive currency, 
it should be discouraged by all conscientious members of the 
pharmaceutical profession. 
W. H., Jr. 
Philadelphia^ Third mo. 3d, 1838. 
ART. IV.— NOTICE OF THE TRUE JALAP PLANT. 
(Ipomcea Jalapa, ) 
In the American Journal of Medical Sciences for February, 
1830, is a paper upon the above named plant, by Dr. J. 
Redman Coxe. Jalap tubers, in the living state, having been 
sent to him from Mexico, he was so successful in their cul- 
tivation, as to be enabled to present a description and figure 
of the plant when inflorescence was complete. A memoir 
upon the subject of jalap, in which reference is made to the pre- 
ceding, and accompanied with the figure, was published in this 
Journal, (vol. ii. p. 22,) by Daniel B. Smith, Esq. During 
