Am  FJe0bu.ri876.arm' }     The  Importance  of  Garbling  Drugs.  .  5  3 
none  but  reliable  houses,  that  our  whole  duty  has  been  discharged  in 
the  selection  of  material  for  our  preparations  and  prescriptions  ;  but  this 
precaution  alone  will  not  answer,  for  there  is  seemingly  a  constant  ten- 
dency in  drugs  to  become  contaminated  with  foreign  substances. 
Goat-skins  and  aloes  have  an  almost  inseparable  friendship  for  each 
other. 
Rhubarb  is  sometimes  associated  with  neatly-dusted  stones,  and 
though  they  grind  hard,  we  make  them  up  into  extracts  and  powders, 
and  dispense  them  under  a  printed  guarantee  of  purity.  Hydrastis  and 
serpentaria  experience  a  sort  of  endosmosis,  and  genuine  tapioca  takes 
out  naturalization  papers  in  New  York  city. 
Not  long  since,  I  examined  a  package  of  serpentaria  (about  2  lbs.), 
which,  to  a  casual  observer,  was  of  remarkably  fine  appearance,  but  on 
a  more  intimate  acquaintance  was  found  to  contain  not  only  serpen- 
taria, but  also  fruit  of  ground  cherry,  capsules  of  an  unknown  plant, 
stems  and  leaves  of  serpentaria,  onion-husks,  charcoal,  snail-shells,  bits 
of  wood,  glue,  ginseng  and  gravel.  I  fear  an  infusion  from  such  an 
article  would  scarcely  be  in  accordance  with  the  letter  of  the  "  Phar- 
macopoeia." 
In  another  instance,  one  pound  of  sarsaparilla  root  on  being  garbled, 
produced  the  following  medley  :  nut-galls,  matico  stems,  bay,  bella- 
donna and  digitalis  leaves,  paper,  unknown  bark,  straw,  ipecac  and 
May-apple  roots.  Whether  such  a  mixture  would  heighten  the  alter- 
ative effect  of  sarsaparilla  is  exceedingly  questionable.  How  such  an 
aggregation  of  substances  so  entirely  different  could  take  place,  is  not 
a  question  of  difficult  solution,  when  we  consider  how  carelessly  the 
covers  of  bins,  barrels  and  boxes  are  adjusted  in  some  of  our  whole- 
sale houses. 
A  source  of  greater  trouble  than  this,  is  in  the  fact  that  drugs  are 
too  often  collected  with  seemingly  but  little  regard  to  the  medicinal 
portion  thereof,  as  for  instance,  valerian  and  aconite  roots  are  rarely 
found  with  less  than  25  per  cent,  of  stems  attached,  which,  inasmuch 
as  they  contain  no  therapeutical  virtue,  are  worse  than  useless. 
Pith  of  sassafras  is  occasionally  accompanied  with  a  goodly  share  of 
the  woody  structure  ;  in  fact,  one  specimen  which  I  possess  is  entirely 
composed  of  ligneous  matter.  Many  of  the  leaves  are  collected  with 
large  quantities  of  stems  and  petioles,  as  in  senna,  buchu,  digitalis,  etc. 
Seeds  are  very  generally  found  contaminated  with  stems  and  seed- 
vessels.     Barks,  especially  our  indigenous  ones,  are  too  frequently 
