It is in view of such considerations as these that I would endeavour to offer some practical suggestions as to how the more important of our indigenous drugs may be dealt with, not merely as indifferent substitutes for European products but as each filling a place of its own in point of usefulness and therapeutic value. The first consideration is that of IDENTIFICATION. This will remain a prime difficulty until certain prominent characteristics of each drug become established, as no amount of verbal description will enable the non-botanical mind to identify some plants and parts which even in themselves do not invariably present quite the same characters. The ease and cheapness with which almost all the drugs of this country are to be obtained will be facilitated greatly retarded by the circumstance that the sophistication and adulteration of these drugs are carried on so systematically that it is almost impossible to procure them locally in a pure state, and also because there are now available imported remedies of a much more efficient nature. Certain indigenous drugs, which can be obtained pure in the local market, and in which adulterations can be detected, are used at the Medical Depôts. In his paper on the subject, Rai Bahadur Kanny Lall Dey concludes, from a perusal of the latest list of medical stores for hospitals in Bengal that only one such drug, namely, chiretta, is so utilized but from the list marginally noted of drugs now used in the Medical Depôts, which has been furnished to the Government of India, it List of drugs purchased locally Asafoetida. Calumba root. Cardamom seeds. Catechu. Cinnamon bark. Chiretta. Cubebs. Ginger. Galls. Kino. Myrrh. Nux-vomica. Senna leaves. Anise oil. Cinnamon oil. Castor oil. would seem that his information upon this point was imperfect. The Government of India have no doubt that other indigenous drugs would be employed in the Medical Depôts if they could be obtained pure, of a stable character, and at a price not exceeding that at which they can be imported." [Indian opium and Indian grown cinchona and their alkaloids are also used exclusively.] with the help of the vernacular names peculiar to each district, as also with the aid of the professional castes who deal in these substances, the Musheras of Central and Upper India, the low caste Maules, Bediyás, Bagdis, Kaibartas, Pods, Chandals, Kaoras, and Karangas of Bengal and the Chandras, Bhils, and Gamtas of Bombay. These humble communities of the several Presidencies of India can render immense service to medical men in supplying medicinal plants. This fact was fully recognised by Sir William Jones, the President-founder of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. In the second volume of his "Botanical Observations on Select Indian Plants" he wrote: "I am very solicitous to give Indian plants their true Indian appellations; because I am fully persuaded that Linnæus himself would have adopted them, had he known the learned and ancient language of this country. ** Far am I from doubting the great importance of perfect botanical descriptions, for languages expire as nations decay, and the true sense of many appellatives in every dead language must be lost in the course of ages; but as long as those appellatives remain understood, a travelling physician who should wish to procure an Arabian or Indian plant, and without asking for it by its learned or vulgar name, should hunt for it in the woods by its botanical character, would resemble a geographer, who, desiring to enquire by name for a street or a town, would wait with his tables and instruments for a proper occasion to determine its longitude and latitude." The suggestion herein conveyed has been carried into effect in such names as Anthocephalus Cadamba and Cedrus Deodara, but it is to be regretted that it has not been possible to widen the system in the nomenclature of plants peculiar to India. Botanically, many of the doubtful points relating to the plants yielding these drugs have been set at rest for ever in Sir Joseph Hooker's extensive work, the " Flora of British India," now completed in all but the grasses, while the index collections of authentic specimens which are in process of formation at the Imperial Museum, Calcutta, and the Imperial Institute, London, to which the "Dictionary of Economic Products" is to form the catalogue and key, will, when complete, facilitate the identification of these products for commercial purposes. All the well-oiled machinery of this official mill, however, will not bring our acquaintance with those of our Native medicines that we ought to know better out of the theoretical into the practical. I would suggest a further step in the establishment of facilities for the supply of RELIABLE PREPARATIONS, ready for immediate use by physicians. It is vain to expect medical officers to assume the role either of botanists or druggists. That is a condition of things which has long gone by. I have to suggest, therefore, that the Medical Storekeepers of the respective Presidencies should be asked to make some definite pharmaceutical preparations at their respective laboratories for distribution to the various hospitals and dispensaries for trial and report. In this way a step would be made towards their practical utilization while the advisability or otherwise of their replacing costly imported drugs could be most readily determined. Absolute dependence ought not to be placed on individual opinion, for such may be formed from preconceived notions or may be affected by influences or considerations which may detract from their real value. Some such arrangement once thoroughly established, however, the great Indian Medical Service will be a source of unlimited blessing to the people and will be independent of the -ines and the -anes and the synthetical monstrosities innumerable of these last days. The particular class of preparation I would favour is the general one of fluid extracts as originated in the United States Pharmacopoeia, one part of the product representing one part of the original drug operated upon.* They present the advantages of portability, permanence and adaptability, with concentration and uniformity. I have myself made several experiments in this direction, the results of which I have the honour to present for your inspection. I am persuaded that the future of Indian pharmacology depends largely on considerations such as I have indicated to you. The next important point is the commercial aspect of this question. The Government of India has encouraged with a liberality beyond all precedence the cultivation of medicinal plauts suited to India, and the experimental cultivation of others which have proved to be unsuitable to the soil. The result has been, on the one hand, that the cinchona industry of the world has been completely revolutionised, ruined, some will say, while on the other, thousands of rupees have been spent to practically no purpose in the attempt to establish ipecacuanha. The time has now come for laying out MEDICINAL PLANT FARMS in the districts most suited to the drugs which it is proposed to grow. There is enough belladonna on the Himalaya to supply the world, which, if transplanted and carefully cultivated, would surely at least save India the necessity, if not the cost, of importing that among many other drugs which might similarly be grown. The medicinal plant and essential oil gardens of Germany and Belgium are sufficient evidence of the success attending such enterprise. Another most desirable step which would follow this in natural sequence would be the establishment of a * See Appendix III, FLUID EXTRACTS, page 341. drug emporium for India. This for obvious reasons would be most practically effected at Calcutta. A class of drug brokers would arise, whose business it would be to encourage the systematic collection of drugs for export to the great markets of Europe, Australia and America. The sorting of the drugs into their various qualities could be effected quite as easily in the Calcutta as in the London market, and the present anomalous position of the Indian druggists importing drugs which have already been shipped from India would be done away. There are thousands of tons of valuable roots and flowers, and fruits and fibres rotting in the jungles every year for want of a proper market in which to have their approximate values appraised. Nor are they even on the Himálaya so very inaccessible. The gentian grubbers of the Alps spend weeks at a time far away from their homes collecting for the market. Some of the medicinal plant farmers about Brussels employ 500 collectors-whole families-who go out into the surrounding districts and collect the drugs, which they prepare for the markets of the world. With the cost of labour at a minimum in India and material in profusion, success in some corresponding degree is assured. The ever-improving railway communication should afford a great impetus to such an industry, which I am confident would in time become one of considerable importance to the people of India.* Above all I would appeal to my countrymen to be honest. It is unfortunately too true that the art of sophistication and ADULTERATION as applied to almost every commodity produced in India, * See a description of Aconite collection in the Himalaya, Appendix II, page 337, |