Page:Botanic drugs, their materia medica, pharmacology, and therapeutics (1917).djvu/12

 sometimes suddenly assume importance, as is instanced in our own oil of chenopodium as an anthelmintic.

The great European war has stimulated the study of our own resources for the production of botanic remedies and the fabrication of chemical ones. Various American universities and large drug houses are undertaking the experimental cultivation of medicinal plants, some three hundred species having been tried out. Many have failed under our conditions of soil and climate, but an increasing number of successes are being noted; so that, ultimately, we shall develop a new and promising drug industry.

And other countries are doing the same thing, in some degree at least. Indeed, as regards botanic remedies, it will be hard to internationalize medicine, much as this might be desired.

Definite chemical substances are often made under patented processes, or are marketed under copyrighted trade names; thereby, a stable profit is derived from their exploitation and sale. But preparations derived from botanic drugs are neither patented nor copyrighted, and the profits derived from their sale, not being sufficient to pay for exploitation except in the form of mixed-ingredient proprietary specialties, these botanic remedies are not pushed to the fore. Physicians are not urged to use them, seldom hear of them, and rarely employ them. In fact, many botanic remedies are not available in retail trade, and physicians cease to prescribe them.

War conditions are changing these relationships of supply and demand; and it is more than probable that each country will, hereafter, develop its