586 
Pharmaceutical  Meeting. 
J  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
I  December,  1903. 
Prof.  Joseph  P.  Remington  stated  that  he  had  seven  or  eight  speci- 
mens of  opium  in  his  collection  from  as  many  different  States,  and 
said  that  there  did  not  seem  to  be  so  much  difficulty  in  growing  the 
poppy  plant  as  in  collecting  the  opium. 
In  answer  to  a  question  by  Professor  Lowe,  Dr.  True  stated  that 
some  ol  the  leaves  collected  from  digitalis  plants  on  the  Pacific  Coast, 
where  they  are  regarded  as  weeds,  had  been  assayed  and  found  to 
be  as  good  as  any  of  the  imported  leaves. 
Professor  Remington  said  he  had  understood  that  the  leaves  from 
cultivated  belladonna  and  hyoscyamus  plants  were  not  as  rich  in 
active  principles  as  those  obtained  from  wild  plants. 
In  discussing  the  question  of  the  relative  amount  of  active  princi- 
ples in  cultivated  and  wild  plants,  Prof.  Henry  Kraemer  cited  an 
instance  to  show  that  a  plant  that  was  grown  for  Digitalis  purpurea 
was  an  entirely  different  species,  and  said  that  necessarily  we  would 
not  expect  beneficial  results  from  such  a  spurious  drug  in  the  hands  of 
the  therapeutist.  He  also  cited  an  instance  to  show  that  the  chemi- 
cal assay  of  digitalis,  as  usually  carried  out,  is  not  an  indication  of 
the  value  of  the  drug. 
In  this  connection  Professor  Kraemer  exhibited  a  living  digitalis 
plant  which  was  three  years  old,  and  which  bloomed  the  past  summer. 
He  said  that  the  young  plant  had  been  given  him  by  a  student  of 
his,  who  had  obtained  it  from  a  cultivator  who  claimed  that  it  was 
Digitalis  purpurea ,  and  who  produces  as  much  as  250  pounds  of  the 
drug  a  year  for  the  market.  Professor  Kraemer  said  that  when  the 
plant  bloomed,  however,  it  proved  to  be  Digitalis  monstrosa,  and 
that  this  circumstance  showed  how  careful  cultivators  of  medicinal 
plants  should  be  in  order  to  produce  drugs  of  genuine  botanical 
origin.  He  then  spoke  of  the  scarcity  of  genuine  spigelia,  and  of 
the  fact  that  for  years  a  spurious  root  has  been  supplied  to  the 
market  in  its  place,  and  said  that  no  doubt  much  of  the  alleged  infe- 
riority of  vegetable  drugs  was  due  to  causes  like  the  foregoing.  In 
view  of  these  and  other  observations,  he  advised  the  making  of  pre- 
liminary experiments  in  the  growing  of  medicinal  plants  so  as  to 
establish  the  genuineness  of  the  species,  and  also  advised  buying  the 
best  seeds  from  the  most  reliable  houses.  He  enumerated  a  num- 
ber of  plants  which  he  had  under  cultivation,  and  stated  that  he 
had  seeds  of  both  belladonna  and  inula  which  he  would  be  glad  to 
give  to  any  one  desiring  them. 
