300  Utilisation  of  Our  Own  Resources.  {Amju?yr'i9ih5arm 
•  THE  UTILIZATION  OF  OUR  OWN  RESOURCES  IN  PRO- 
DUCING DYESTUFFS  AND  DRUGS.1 
By  JoseI^i  Jacobs,  Atlanta,  Georgia. 
In  a  paper  read  at  the  Baltimore  meeting  of  the  American  Pharma- 
ceutical Association  I  endeavored  to  show  how  the  Southern  people 
supplied  the  drug  necessities  to  their  armies  and  their  non-combatants 
during  the  four  years  of  war  between  the  States,  while  importations 
were  hindered  by  blockades  and  home  manufactures  demoralized  by 
war. 
The  lessons  of  self-dependence  that  were  learned  and  practised 
by  our  Southern  people  during  that  time  in  utilizing  the  many  and 
varied  drug  resources  of  our  own  country,  in  the  absence  of  the 
accustomed  foreign  supplies,  apply  with  similar  force  now  to  our 
whole  reunited  country,  while  the  world's  peaceful  trade  and  inter- 
course are  shattered  by  the  new  strife  of  the  European  nations.' 
Owing  to  our  friendly  patronage  of  foreign  manufacturers  in 
buying  from  them  many  drug  products  that  we  could  have  made  for 
ourselves  and  many  that  we  could  have  dispensed  with  by  the  use 
of  easily-obtained  substitutes,  we  have  found  ourselves,  after  less 
than  a  year  of  their  strifes  and  disputes,  distressed  to  afford  the 
usual  supplies  of  medicinals  at  reasonable  cost  to  our  consumers. 
It  is  timely,  therefore,  it  might  seem,  to  learn  the  cause  of  these 
conditions  and  call  attention  to  the  remedies  for  it  which  present 
and  pending  circumstances  seem  to  indicate. 
Our  Patent  Laws. 
If  our  patent  laws  had  not  operated  to  give  unfair  advantages  to 
foreign  manufacturers  of  chemicals  and  dyestuffs  over  our  own 
we  should  now  be  in  condition  to  make  on  American  soil  all  kinds 
and  quantities  of  chemical  products  needed  at  home  and  much  to  sell 
at  a  profit  abroad.  Other  nations  have  required  of  those  desiring 
patents  or  trade-marks  that  factories  for  the  production  of  the 
articles  involved  should  be  erected  on  their  domains.  We  have 
allowed  their  proprietaries  under  our  patents  and  trade-marks  to 
produce  the  articles  of  their  manufacture  in  their  own  country  with- 
out any  requirements  of  their  manufacture  here.   Now,  that  our  for- 
1  From  the  Constitution,  Atlanta,  Georgia,  May  23,  1915. 
