Preface

In connection with the work of Drug-Plant Investigations many inquiries are received from various parts of the country asking for a list of the drug-producing plants of the regions concerned and for information as to the parts of the plants used in medicine, etc. It being impossible to comply with requests of this nature in any satisfactory way, Miss Henkel was asked to compile a list of the drug plants of this country, using as a basis the catalogues of dealers in crude drugs and the standard works on systematic botany. It has seemed from an inspection of these lists and of much current pharmaceutical literature that the recent changes in botanical nomenclature have succeeded one another too rapidly to permit the drug dealer and the pharmacist to keep pace with them. This has resulted in considerable confusion in regard to botanical names, and in some cases in the matter of the common names of drug-producing plants. In such a list as that herewith presented the opportunity for helping to clear up this situation has seemed worth improving. The recent appearance of the new Pharmacopœia, in which the botanical nomenclature has been revised, has seemed to emphasize the desirability of making this attempt, since the names in the case of official plants will be fairly definitely fixed among pharmacists for the next ten years. In the accompanying list the pharmacopœial names are given and a revision of the nomenclature of the unofficial drugs is also presented. Mr. Frederick V. Coville, Botanist, has kindly revised the botanical names used in this publication.

It is hoped that this compilation will tend to unify usage among those who have to do with crude drugs and drug plants.

Rodney H. True,

Physiologist in Charge

Office of Drug-Plant Investigations,

Washington, D. C., October 12, 1905.

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B. P. I.—187.