AlAug°iS;  in™' }      Cultivation  of  Medicinal  Plants.  347 
every  variation  of  wind  and  cloud,  shifted  and  changed  by  every  ebb 
and  flow  of  population  and  people — the  product  of  the  labor  of  the 
outcasts  from  human  life',  constituting  the  meanest  of  industries, 
and  one  in  which  any  change  in  the  status  of  the  people  sends  the 
drug  gatherer  further  and  further  Into  the  abyss.  The  living  medici- 
nal plant,  containing  the  most  delicate  and  sensitive  substances  in 
materia  medica,  is  handled  by  rough,  coarse,  destructive  methods — 
mixed,  sophisticated,  adulterated  by  unscrupulous  middlemen.  The 
organic  structure  of  the  highest  complexity,  and  containing  the  most 
delicate  principles  known  to  science,  is  handled  more  roughly  than 
ore  from#the  mines,  or  lumber  from  the  forests. 
Pharmaceutical  chemistry  and  manufacturing  pharmacy  have 
made  much  progress  in  our  day,  and  when  we  look  into  the  source 
of  its  basic  material  we  wonder  that  it  has  made  this  progress.  To 
compare  the  history  of  belladonna,  or  any  drug  plant,  from  the  field 
to  the  laboratory,  with  that  of  textile  fibre  and  dyewoods,  is  a  thou- 
sand degrees  to  the  disadvantage  of  the  manufacturing  pharmacist. 
It  seems  to  me  that  to  place  the  supply  of  medicinal  plants  on  an  equal 
basis  with  oats,  rye,  wheat,  or  fruits,  and  apply  to  them  the  knowledge 
of  modern  horticultural  and  agricultural  science,  is  to  place  them  on 
a  safe  and  rational  basis,  which  will  amount  to  a  revolution  in 
medicine. 
In  the  case  of  plants  that  have  a  large  demand,  certain  scientific 
attention  has  been  given  to  their  source  of  supply,  and  where  such 
attention  has  been  given,  as  in  the  case  of  drugs  which  produce  the 
essential  oils,  and  such  plants  as  cinchona,  vanilla,  etc.,  the  value  of 
the  product  obtained,  as  compared  with  haphazard  methods,  has  been 
strikingly  demonstrated.  The  drugs  to  which  pharmacists  and  manu- 
facturers alike  have  given  no  attention  along  this  line  would,  when 
taken  collectively,  also  involve  a  large  money  value. 
Is  it  not  true  that  any  drug  which  is  of  sufficient  importance  to  be 
engrafted  into  the  Pharmacopoeia,  or  to  be  used  as  a  life-saving  agent, 
is  worthy  of  our  best  attention?  Would  not  the  extension  of  the 
study  which  has  been  so  beneficial  to  a  few  of  our  drugs  serve  for  the 
benefit  of  all  our  medicinal  plants? 
Practically  all  of  the  medicinal  substances  which  dose  the  Ameri- 
can people,  and  residents  in  foreign  lands,  are  either  made,  or  in  one 
way  or  another  supplied  by  this  Association  of  Manufacturers  of 
Medicinal  Products.  The  problem  of  the  future  supply  of  medicines 
from  plants  rests  with  us.    How  shall  we  meet  it?    In  the  past  we 
