Am.  Jour.  Pharm. ") 
May,  1909.  { 
Crude  and  Powdered  Drugs. 
239 
stems  in  this  drug,  but  such  an  amount  as  here  found  must  mean 
wrong  intent.  We  know  that  the  fruits  of  this  drug  are  deficient 
in  activity,  but  the  medicinal  quality  of  the  stems  is  not  settled. 
There  is  some  reason  to  believe  that  all  except  the  very  large  stems 
are  equal  to  the  leaves.  The  subject  requires  investigation  and  a 
possible  broadening  of  our  definition,  but  at  the  present  time  the 
definition  includes  only  the  leaves. 
The  second  class  of  cases  to  be  considered  is  that  of  drugs  regard- 
ing which  errors  are  for  one  reason  or  another  quite  likely  to  occur. 
It  is  not  intended,  on  this  account,  to  entirely  excuse  the  distribution 
of  such  drugs  to  consumers.  It  is  inconceivable  that  somewhere 
along  the  line  the  mistake  should  not  have  been  detected,  even  in 
the  present  disgraceful  state  of  combined  ignorance  and  carelessness 
among  dealers  and  handlers.  We  may,  however,  in  order  to  free 
our  indictment  from  every  possible  element  of  undue  severity,  sepa- 
rate these  cases  from  those  in  which  wrong  intent  is  absolutely 
certain. 
Five  shipments  of  spurious  matico  have  reached  New  York 
within  the  year,  against,  I  think,  four  of  the  genuine.  The  simi- 
larity between  these  two  is  very  close  indeed  and  a  mistake,  con- 
tinued from  collector  to  consumer,  is  quite  excusable.  I  therefore 
exhibit  mounted  specimens  of  the  two  articles,  and  shall  very  shortly 
publish  an  exhaustive  paper  on  this  subject. 
Several  shipments  of  spergula  or  giant  spurrey  seeds  have  arrived 
as  "  asparagus  seeds,"  the  case  being  one  merely  of  confusion  of 
similar  names.  It  serves,  however,  to  illustrate  the  carelessness  of 
a  system  which  allows  the  business  to  be  conducted  by  people  so 
lacking  in  education  as  to  make  and  continue  such  an  error. 
Nigella,  or  so-called  black  caraway,  labelled  "  caraway,"  repre- 
sents a  similar  confusion  of  names. 
A  lot  of  Japanese  scopola  is  imported  as  "  scopola  " ;  that  is,  as 
European  scopola.  So  similar  are  these  two  plants  that  so  high  an 
authority  as  Holmes  has  questioned  whether  they  do  not  represent 
a  single  species.  Nevertheless,  assay  shows  this  particular  lot  to 
be  very  deficient  in  alkaloid. 
Coto  is  one  of  the  rarest,  if  not  the  very  rarest,  of  important 
drugs.  Paracoto  probably  stands  next.  The  only  genuine  shipments 
of  either  that  have  reached  this  market  within  a  year  were  two 
one-pound  samples  sent  over  by  Merck  &  Company  as  a  donation 
to  the  New  York  Botanical  Gardens.    Five  spurious  shipments 
