346  Cultivation  of  Medicinal  Plants.       {A^Ug™?  w?™' 
we  find  that  certain  intelligent  English  and  continental  producers 
carry  on  the  industry  in  a  painstaking  manner.  It  is  also  to  be  noted 
that  in  certain  cities  on  the  continent  sewage  farms  have  been  estab- 
lished, on  some  of  which  medicinal  plant  growing  has  been  under- 
taken. 
Under  the  conditions  which  obtain  in  England  and  upon  the 
continent,  the  primary  object  seems  to  be  to  maintain  a  certain  color ; 
in  other  words,  the  standard  is  appearance  rather  than  quality.  The 
shrewd  producer  of  drugs  has  learned  that  at  certain  stages  of 
growth,  the  root  and  the  leaf  yield  the  desired  color  and  texture, 
and  this  is  the  point  which  he  strives  to  attain. 
Some  enlightenment  as  to  the  condition  and  quality  of  the  drugs 
which  we  manufacture  may  be  gathered  from  the  following  obser- 
vations : 
Many  drugs,  especially  roots,  when  received  by  the  buyer  from 
the  growing  district,  are  not  marketable.  They  may  not  have  been 
well  washed  and  they  may  not  have  been  well  dried,  and  when 
looked  at  in  heaps  present  a  motley  array  of  colors,  sizes  and  shapes. 
It  is  the  province  of  the  dealer  to  put  them  into  a  marketable  con- 
dition, and  this  he  is  able  to  do  by  a  series  of  washings,  splitting, 
cutting  and  drying,  and  a  general  dressing  up,  until  the  whole  lot  is 
brought  to  a  uniform  outward  appearance.  In  such  an  establishment, 
when  one  sees  a  heap  of  light-colored  root  which  ought  to  be  dark, 
and  a  heap  of  dark-colored  root  which  ought  to  be  light,  and  in 
proximity  thereto  an  array  of  mixtures  and  solutions  of  various 
dyes  and  the  like,  he  can  imagine  how  easily  a  change  of  color  might 
be  brought  about.  In  other  words,  he  can  realize  that  many  of  our 
drugs  are  subjected  to  a  toning  process  which  may  or  may  not  affect 
their  value  for  medicinal, purposes. 
At  the  present  time,  at  best,  and  irrespective  of  the  present 
disturbed  condition  of  the  source  of  supply,  we  seem  dependent  upon 
a  haphazard  source  for  our  crude  drugs.  Under  this  condition  the 
commercial  value,  the  physiological  action  and  the  therapeutic  value 
of  a  given  drug  may  depend  quite  largely  upon  the  man  who  removes 
it  from  the  soil.  This  suggests  to  us  that  the  man  with  the  hoe  or  the 
man  with  the  scythe  is  quite  as  important  as  the  man  behind  the  perco- 
lator, for  each,  in  a  measure,  holds  the  life  of  the  patient  in  his  hands. 
The  present  source  of  drug  plants  seems  to  stand  as  a  bar  to 
progress.  The  raw  material,  the  foundation  of  our  work,  collected 
from  the  most  irresponsible  and  uncontrolled  sources,  subjected  to 
