388 
Structural  Plant  Relationships. 
i  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
I      August,  1905. 
not  eat  the  thorn  of  the  cactus  or  the  root  of  the  mandrake,  but  the 
fruit  or  juice  of  the  one,  and  the  fruit  of  the  other.  They  do  not  eat 
the  husk  of  corn  or  the  shell  of  the  almond,  but  their  kernels.  This 
is  a  familiar  fact,  seemingly  self-evident,  but  some  time  in  the  past 
it  too  had  to  be  learned  by  experiment.  The  tuber  of  the  potato 
is  food,  not  its  top.  Phytolacca  sprouts  are  excellent  greens,  but  the 
root  is  an  acrid  irritant.  The  flesh  of  the  fruit  that  encloses  the 
deadly  nux  vomica  seeds,  much  as  an  orange  seed  is  imbedded  in 
its  pulp,  is  eaten  freely.  All  this  has  experience  taught,  and  were  it 
not  for  the  personal  instruction  each  man  gets  from  those  already 
informed,  would,  in  each  case,  have  to  be  learned  anew. 
Empiricism  teaches  that  the  bark  of  the  cinchona,  the  inspissated 
juice  of  the  poppy  capsule,  the  root  of  ipecac,  the  fruit  of  calabar, 
the  dried  juice  of  the  catechu  are  remedial  alteratives.  They  pro- 
duce changes  in  organs  or  in  structures  by  their  influence  on  nerve 
current  or  on  vitalized  matter.  They  are  natural  plant  structures, 
which  experience  has  taught,  as  a  crude  whole,  can  influence  or  con- 
serve life  structures. 
Empiricism  Extended  in  the  Direction  of  Medicine. — Let  us  pass 
the  evolution  which  in  foods  is  giving  us  new  forms  and  combinations 
of  old  food-stuffs  to  serve  the  palate  and  the  eye,  and  turn  our  atten- 
tion to  therapy.  Basing  his  reasoning  on  observed  facts,  the  thought- 
ful modern  physician,  aided  by  the  pharmacist,  draws  yet  finer  lines. 
With  his  foot  on  the  pedestal  empiricism  has  reared  in  the  use  of 
plants  as  a  whole,  he  adds  thereto  another  mite.  Ke  differentiates 
between  the  giving  of  certain  remedial  structures  for  disease  names 
and  the  giving  of  them  for  disease  expressions  which  accompany 
abnormal  conditions  that  have  given  rise  to  such  disease  names.  He 
learns  that  even  though  a  fever  may  be  always  reduced  by  aconite, 
as  established  by  more  superficial  observation,  it  is  not  best  to  give 
aconite  in  all  expressions  accompanied  by  fever.  He  learns  that 
while  cinchona  is  useful  in  "  intermittents,"  it  must  be  given  only  in 
certain  stages  of  the  affection.  He  learns  that  opium  may  be  a 
friend  or  an  enemy,  dependent  on  symptoms,  idiosyncrasies,  and  com. 
plications ;  that  ipecac  has  two  qualities,  and  when  used  in  minute 
doses  is  useful  in  a  direction  that  is  the  very  antithesis  of  emesis, 
its  first  field.  Such  as  this  he  learns  by  experimentation  and  obser- 
vation, and  such  truths  as  this  can  be  learned  only  by  observation 
based  on  experimentation.    He  also  discovers  that  given  a  proven 
