Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 33.djvu/165

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[This highly interesting paper has been furnished through the kind mediation of Walter L. Fleming, Ph. D., Professor of History in West Virginia University, and the author of the important and thoughtful "Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama," etc. Dr. Fleming is a diligent and conscientious delver and makes effective use of his devoted investigations. The prayer due is that such exponents be multiplied! The author of the valuable article, which it is a privilege to preserve in these pages, was born in August, 1859. His father was a defender of the righteous Southern cause, serving as a member of the 14th Georgia C. S. A. The son, Joseph Jacobs, at the early age of thirteen, became an apprentice to the distinguished physician-pharmacist Dr. Crawford W. Long, the discoverer of the use of ether as an anaesthetic—one of the greatest boons ever conferred on humanity, as is justly urged in glowing tribute, and whose claim as the original discoverer is cogently maintained in an article in the "Southern Advance" by his pupil, now a leading druggist in Atlanta, and whose progressive spirit does honor to his famous preceptor. The admirable paper covers a much broader field than its title, "Some of the Drug Conditions," would imply, as it comprehends the conditions governing the supply of many other articles of vital importance in the stupendous struggle of the South. Dr. Jacobs writes that the facts presented by him, were "gathered from various sources, by interviewing men who were in the drug business during the war, and by having access to many interesting and valuable papers."

Some references for those interested may be added: "The Resources of the Southern Fields and Forests," by Francis Payre Porcher, surgeon P. A. C. S., and prepared and published by order of Surgeon General S. P. Moore in 1863, and the following in the