Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/75

INTRODUCTION. lxvii necessity of extensively growing medicinal plants especially in India where, with, little difficulty, economic plants of all lands can be cultivated.*

The establishment of medicinal farms in well selected locali- ties* will exercise scientific control over the cultivation of medicinal herbs and plants. Regarding the advantages of conducting a farm of this nature Messrs. Burroughs Wellcome and Co., who have established such a one, write : —

" 1. A drug may be treated or worked up immediately it has been collected.

" 2. Herbs may be dried, if necessary, directly they are cut, before fermentation and other deteriorative changes have set in.

" 3. Freedom is ensured from caprice on the part of collec- tors, who, in gathering wild herbs, are very difficult to control in the matter of adulteration, both accidental and intentional.

" 4. Opportunity is provided to select and cultivate that particular strain of a plant which has been found by chemical and physiological tests to be the most active, and which gives the most satisfactory preparations."

We know there are many plants mentioned by Hindu medical authors which are not procurable now. We have to refer to such names as those of Kakoli, Ksira kakoli, Medha, Maha Medha, Jivaka, Risabha &c. Perhaps this extinction of valuable medicinal plants of ancient India is well explained by what Mr. J. L. Stingel writes in the American Journal of Pharmacy for 1912 (pp. 299 et seq) regarding Hydrastis that with the progress of civilisation the plant has diminished. He says that " the scarcity of this valuable drug cannot be entirely attributed to lack of plants

problems in connection with several score different plants has a difficult task ahead, but one which may pave the way toward American independence in drug science."

Scientific cultivation of drug plants in this country will make India independent in drug science.

to have said before the Indian Industry Commission, that " most of the drugs imported into India were absolute refuse, and considering that one-half of the drugs in the British pharmacopoeia are indigenous to India and that most of the rest could be cultivated there is clearly an opportunity of developing an industry that has been almost neglected, and if India is to grow its own drugs it must take care that it gets them unadulterated."
 * Lieuteuant-Colonel Sir Leonard Rogers, M. D., F. R. C. P., K. C. I. E. I. M. S., the founder of the Calcutta Tropical School of Medicine is reported