Am:dlustPimm'}        Structural  Plant  Relationships.  387 
story  still  in  process.  There  is  yet  a  risk  in  some  directions  where 
persons  uninformed  partake  of  weeds  that  should  be  known  as  poi- 
sons. In  England  the  "  sow-bread  "  or  bryonia  claims  each  year 
its  victims.  The  same  is  true  of  (Enanthe  crocata.  The  wild  pars- 
nip is  often  eaten  in  America  lor  parsnip,  and  death  results.  The 
terribly  poisonous  amanita  is  mistaken  for  the  wholesome  mushroom. 
Whole  families  sometimes  perish;  no  antidote  is  known.  And  yet 
the  weeds  of  the  field,  the  plants  of  the  desert  and  the  forest,  un- 
questionably offer  untold  food  opportunities  to  the  human  family. 
Let  us  not  forget  that  the  luscious  apple  came  from  a  knotty,  astrin- 
gent wild  fruit,  that  the  mother  of  the  potato  grows  yet  as  an  insig- 
nificant wild  tuber  in  Mexico,  and  that  but  a  generation  back  the 
tomato  was  considered  poisonous  and  was  cultivated  merely  as  an 
ornamental  plant. 
Turn  now  to  remedial  plants.  Who  can  even  formulate  the  em- 
pirical wanderings  that  led  to  the  discovery  of  the  qualities  of  ipecac, 
nux  vomica,  opium,  jalap,  podophyllum,  that  are  possessed  of  ener- 
gies that  may,  if  illogically  used,  make  them  poisons,  or,  if  discreetly 
employed,  yield  kindly  remedial  agents  ?  Who  can  trace  the  more 
difficult  study  that  led  to  the  discovery  of  the  insidious,  valuable 
qualities  of  less  harsh  agents,  such  as  baptisia,  aletris,  hydrastis,  col- 
linsonia,  macrotys,  and  that  last  valuable  discovery  of  the  past 
decade,  echinacea,  which  but  a  few  years  ago  was  known  only  as 
a  worthless  Western  weed  ?  Who  will  next  serve  humanity  in  this 
field,  or  who  can  predict  the  name  of  the  plant  next  to  unfold  its 
qualities  ?  All  that  have  been  introduced  are  as  yet  empirical  gifts 
to  man  in  the  sense  that  all  these  natural  corrective  agents  have 
been  established  experimentally.  The  good  of  those  yet  to  come 
must  as  surely  be  the  result  of  empiricism.  All  that  nourishes  and 
conserves  life,  all  that  upbuilds  structures  and  modifies  the  life  cur- 
rent or  prevents  the  abnormal  destruction  of  tissue,  reasoning  from 
analogy  and  from  rational  thought  has  been  the  result  of  empirical 
gifts  to  mankind.  The  evolution  was  based  on  experimentation 
which  leads  to  faith  in  that  which  has  been  evolved  in  the  past 
mazes  of  a  struggle  for  existence  wherein  as  a  rule  no  book  record 
is  preserved.    The  data  of  it  all  is  lost. 
The  Natural  Structure  of  Foods  and  Alteratives. — Among  primi- 
tive lessons  in  food  study  is  that  of  selection  and  differentiation  be- 
tween parts  of  natural  bodies,  be  they  vegetable  or  animal.    Men  do 
