398  Rhus  Glabra  and  Rhus  Typhina.      |AJf- Jour-  T>: 
September,  1913. 
FRUITS  OF  RHUS  GLABRA  REPLACED  BY  FRUITS  OF 
RHUS  TYPHINA. 111 
By  Henry  Kraemer. 
During  the  past  ten  years  the  official  fruit  of  Rhus  glabra  has 
been  replaced  to  some  extent  by  the  fruit  of  Rhus  typhina  or  the 
Staghorn  sumac.  On .  several  occasions  recently  the  drug,  which 
we  have  been  purchasing  for  Rhus  glabra,  consisted  entirely  of  the 
fruits  of  Rhus  typhina.  This  replacement  of  one  drug  by  another 
would  seem  to  be  rather  common  at  present,  yet  it  may  be  not 
more  than  was  formerly  the  case.  A  careful  study  of  even  some 
of  the  official  drugs  on  the  market  shows  that  several  are  entirely 
substituted  not  only  by  more  or  less  closely  allied  species  of  the 
same  genus,  but  even  by  widely  separated  plants.  It  is  not  the 
province  of  the  pharmacognosist  to  determine  if  the  substituted 
articles  are  equal  to  those  that  are  official.  Our  task  consists  in  the 
report  of  our  findings.  We  may  however  ask  the  question,  is  it  not 
probable  that  the  reason  for  the  demand,  for  a  restricted  materia 
medica  by  certain  physicians,  is  due  to  the  fact  that  some  of  the 
drugs  which  have  been  employed  formerly  and  whose  therapeutic 
value  would  seem  to  have  been  established,  are  in  some  instances 
replaced  and  substituted  by  other  plant  products,  the  therapeutic 
value  of  which  not  infrequently  is  unknown,  and  which  in  some 
cases  are  shown  to  be  either  very  toxic  or  practically  inert. 
What  is  really  reprehensible  about  this  replacement  of  one  drug 
by  another  is  that  it  is  usually  done  without  our  knowledge  or  con- 
sent. Then  again  we  do  not  seem  to  consider  it  necessary,  except  in 
a  very  few  cases,  to  study  more  than  superficially  the  nature  and 
quality  of  crude  drugs.  These  matters  I  need  not  enlarge  upon 
at  this  time  as  they  have  been  discussed  by  me  on  several  occasions 
before.1  Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  pharmacognosist  who  uses  the 
microscope  in  the  examination  of  drugs  and  makes  certain  qualita- 
tive tests  for  characteristic  constituents,  often  finds  such  a 
difference  and  alteration  in  the  constituents  in  different  commer- 
cial lots  which  only  serves  to  emphasize  again  that  we  must  give 
more  attention  to  the  subject  of  identity  and  quality  of  drugs  rather 
than  less  as  is  advocated  in  certain  quarters.    We  need  only  a  few 
*  Read  at  Annual  Meeting  of  the  New  Jersey  Pharmaceutical  Association, 
June,  igi3. 
