PLANT PHARMACY By JOHN URI LLOYD. (American Journal of Pharmacy, April, 1922) May I speak informally on one of the many phases of plant pharmacy? This is an extensive subject, a mighty problem, and I would suggest the consideration of but a restricted thought rather than an attempt to review the field as a whole. Let us begin by means of an argument which by some persons may be considered an excuse or an apology for audacity in what I may afterward ex- press. Turn to your works of authoritative lore, behold, what I have to say may not be found in connection with our subject, nor, perhaps, with any other. Any opinion contrary to expressed or voiced "authority" is by some people considered heterodoxy, akin to scientific agnosticism. But we are "irregulars." An ostracized people, a minority section in medicine. But by this very fact I hope we are liberated from phases of mental bondage forbidden him bound by the code of ethics that restricts mental expansion. We believe we have the right to walk into fields hitherto untrodden, to think, to reason, to expound theories new and strange and proclaim reasons for our opinions, be they what they may. No man can to us say, "I am authority," and by that self-sufficient assertion deny others the right to individual thought. No one, in our opinion, has reached infinity of thought. This privi- lege I hold as a pharmacist. The pharmacist of the future, this speaker believes, will stand above our heads, he will see clearly what we have never seen, grasp things we have never touched. Deplorable would it be to reason otherwise. To accomplish this, irregularity of the present must be- come regularity. And, it MUST DO SO or pharmacy will either expire of inaction, or be shattered into fragments by the encroachments of invading sciences. Let us, with this audacious assertion in mind, consider some features of the subject, "Plants in Pharmacy." Comes to thought, as an introduction, what is a plant? And next, what is an animal ? What relation exists between the pharm- acy of the plant and that of an animal? According to general ac- ceptation, if not the dictionary definition, a plant is a vegetable, "a vitalized structure endowed with life." A living structure, but yet devoid of voluntary motion; devoid of true sense perception may also be applied. To pass further,-a scientist might say, plants in- hale carbonic acid and exhale oxygen, animals reverse the process. Let us next consider a typical plant-for example, a tree. There are varieties of trees, ranging from tall trees with mighty trunks to treelike shrubs, in untold number of grades. These may be bushy or slender, drooping like the beech, or tufted like the cocoa- nut. There are trees with smooth bark, as the birch, and trees whose bark is rough or coarse, as the hemlock, or shaggy, as the hickory. Barks vary to infinity. We cannot define the tree by any one feature involved in descriptions such as these, nor yet by the leaf. For example, the leaves of some trees are single, while the leaves of other trees are compound in tufts; some leaves are smooth, others rough; some leaves exhale one odor, others another, while yet others are odorless. The tree, be it large or small, is, however, only one form of plant. There are herbaceous plants and woody plants. There are land plants and marine plants. There are even cannibal plants, like the pitcher plant or the Venus' fly-trap; marvelously do they seem to approach sense perception. The mistletoe, that grows from the bark of the oak or honey locust tree, is typical of vegetable vam- pires. Many a delicate vine creeps up a tree-support, and finally in ingratitude squeezes the life out of its friendly helper. There are plants that grow in air and have no roots, and others, like the fungi, have no leaves. Nor, in describing vegetation, can we truly say that a plant has no power of voluntary motion, or yet that it is wholly devoid of a something akin to intelligence. What causes the shrinking, and even the coiling up of some leaves when struck or even touched, as does the leaf of drosera? Habit, may be the reply. Why do some vines twine to the right, others to the left? Why does the clematis, destitute of tendrils, twine its leaf stalk around its support and thus hold itself up? If habit is the answer, one might ask, "What is habit ?" Bring together all the functions of plant and animal, correlate them, and see if you can with satisfaction to yourself draw a clear line separating the animal from the plant. Rather is the link series not like a continuous chain, animals at one end, plants at the other, the lower orders of the two (regardless of micro-organizations) so closely allied in some of their functions as to merge, as does sanity into insanity? Let us ask, what is plant pharmacy? Superficially it may be defined as the study of plant structures used in medicine, and of the preparations made therefrom. But, although we relegate the term to ourselves, can the apothecary who makes preparations of plants say, "I am the pharmacist?" Listen. Undeceive yourself. Every housewife is a pharmacist, every loaf of bread is a pharmaceutical preparation. Do not the pulverized seeds of plants enter into the preparation of bread? Touches not the housewife the science of chemistry as well as of botany? Is not yeast a plant, does not its culture produce chemical changes, liberating from bread-dough both carbonic acid gas and alcohol? Is not the use of sour milk, sodium bicarbonate and cream of tartar in the making of bread a beautiful chemical process? Audacious would be the man, who, because he uses scientific terms and authoritative books, and mixes his ingredients by means of a mortar in a shop or laboratory, claims thereby that he is the only pharmacist. Have we not the home pharmacist? Is not the kitchen a laboratory of scientific opportunity? Who knows the reactions that ensue in the roasting of beef or the browning of gravy ? Fruits grow and then ripen. by means (intrusions) of lower organisms, often linked to animal life, or by inter-reactions akin to decay that breed ethereal flavors. Fruits and seeds are used in home pharmacy, and likewise sugar in the making of preserves, jellies, in canning, etc. In fact, old-time pharmacy, with its cordials, elixirs, sweetened mixtures, paste confections such as confections of roses, fig and senna, pillular or in mass, wedges very closely into home culinary manipulations. And even closer relationships are bred by systematic observers of foods. Do not our mothers tell us that ripe currants should be sweetened after cooking, because the sugar disappears if they be cooked together; that pie crust should be made and rolled cold with as little manipulation as possible, the lard not being evenly incor- porated if the crust is flaky? Good pharmacy is this. They advise that quinces be not peeled, in culnary (home) pharmacy, because quince flavor lies in the rind. Is not this true of other fruits, such as the orange, lemon, the apple? Do they not cook damson plums whole in order to get the flavor of the seed, the same rule applying to peaches and cherries? In fact, does not the kitchen very closely parallel the laboratory? But, one may say, such as this is not pharmacy; these are no pharmaceutical preparations, but foods, nourishers, supportives of life. To this I would reply, where is highher pharmacy than the making of life supportives or of stimu!ating products to encourage digestion? The pharmacy of death is not my ideal. Consider, what about "beef, wine and iron," so widely advertised as an "exquisite" in pharmacy? What about "beef juice?" What about pepsin? Did not our mothers advise the lining to the gizzard as a digestive food? What about rennet used in our homes in making curd from time immemorial; what substitute have we given in its stead? Has pharmacy improved on the cheeses of the Orient made by means of vegetable curd products, so artfully established that tem- perature of milk in one night makes sour or sweet curd, as de- sired? If the milk be warm, next morning the curd or clabber is sour, if cold, it is sweet. [This and some things else I learned in Turkey, the land of cheeses and curds.] What about the numberless drinks established on the outside that we in "pharmacy" have appropriated? Might we not better in the face of fact, claim that our laboratory is an ally with our kitchen in the great field in which home pharmacy came first, and in which home pharmacy must be forever a vital problem? But our text is now plant pharmacy, not the pharmacist, not yet the motto, "Credit to whom credit is due." Bunch it all to- gether, then ask, Where do plant life and plant pharmacy begin? Where can they end? Is the problem of plant pharmacy (vegetable service) restricted to man? Have we fairly credited vegetation's service in life functions? Have we not seen "through a glass darkly" when we perceive only starches, sugars, fats and nitrogenous flesh as life-giving supportives? Do you know of any animal that does not depend for its very existence on vitality conserved by plant life? Is not the food of all animals derived from plants? Do we not depend on plant life as a mixture, not starch and sugar alone, for our existence? Are we not therefore, in the life essence taken as a whole, a part of the vege- table kingdom, a transformed, perhaps transplanted part? Should we then, as one of nature's animals, define ourselves as moving plants, because our very !ife essence is transferred to ourselves from vegetation ? Seek as a second thought to resist the argument that all ani- mals depend on vegetation for life and existence. Think, although the carnivorous animal, like the tiger, lives on flesh, is not his. food derived from plant-eating creatures? Is not his vitality as well as substance but one step removed from energy gathered by another creature, his victim, who lives on the grass of the field or the leaves of the forest? Bones come next in thought because they are generally consid- ercd "inorganic." But do we not go to plants for materials to form our bones? Can we nourish bone by a diet of stone that con- tains all the inorganic elements of bone? Do we not chiefly seek wheat and such as wheat to obtain our bone-producing elements, our calcium phosphates, and potassium compounds, all our so-called inorganics ? Remember the fate of "Jackson's Bone Food," the com- pound syrup of the phosphates, introduced by the famous Profes- sor Jackson,of the University of Pennsylvania, to theoretically supply needed earth to deficient bone structure. Theoretically it was a "bone food," practically it was found to be inadequate. Too much laboratory outside the digestive mystery ; nature rebelled. Let us, then, as pharmacists, think of plants as primitive gatherers of materials and vital energies anticipant to animal nourishment. Primi- tive we say, too often, when we face the inexplainable. Good business as well as fair ethics is that of give as well ar take. The animal lives its life and passes out. The plant comes again into its own; decay means but a transition step, the grass of the field grows over the resting place of the maiden and thrives above that of the philosopher. The cycle begins over again, old ocean and the sun's ray are its ever undying vitalizers. Comes now another thought : Whether we live on land or sea, are we not all creatures of the ocean? Audacious conception! Let us think. Does not every form of life come from the ocean, even to the tree growing on the mountain top, so remote from Mother Ocean that one might say, "There is no kinship here?" Does not that tree derive both its food and its vitality from the ocean? Old Ocean rises, falls, throbs, comes and goes endlessly, giving life to all that comes into or passes out of its bosom. Cut off the vapor of the ocean and no rain falls. Suppress that breath, dead is the world. This breeds another thought, seemingly afar from pharmacy: What vitalizes the ocean, the earth's great reservoir of energy? Whence its power? Look to the sun. Exclaim, in the words of Os- sian, "Oh, thou glorious sun.!" Its rays uplift the vapor that nour- ishes all vegetation, its call raises the tides, the moon being secon- dary influence to that mighty phenomenon. Paralyze these currents and the movements of the ocean and the life-giving winds bred therein move no longer over the land. Suppress its vapor and the rain ceases to fall, from shore to shore. The rivers dry, the fertile lands become barren wastes, vegetation withers and perishes, ani- mals die, life disappears. The desert claims her own. Is not the life blood of animals but a touch of Old Ocean's dampness? Is not the life of man, even to the most interior portion of the continents, dependent on the distant ocean's wave? Listen. When Lord Roscoe turned his great telescope on the heavens it is reported that he estimated that 250,000 suns in one hour passed across his field of vision. Today astronomers consider such figures as these but factors in Heaven's Kaleidoscope. Is not our sun one of the smaller sun-like orbs, our earth one of the smaller space-studding planet? What means this term space ? Pass that thought, the conception is too great. An astronomer hopes to calculate the distance of a star; he turns his instrument on that star and takes its location. On the earth is his telescope ever revolving around the sun. In six months the earth is on the opposite side of the sun. The astronomer is now distant from his former place of observation twice 92,000,000 miles, double the distance of the earth from the sun. Again he turns his telescope upon a very distant star. From the angle of that immense base line he hopes to calculate the distance of the earth from that far-off orb. But the problem is too great. There is no angle. Parallel are the lines. That astronomer needs make his calculatiom of space depths' treasures from other data. Is this plant pharmacy? Possibly not, but may I not ask who knows the influence of space and its mighty content on earth materials and life ? Comes now the question: "From what source does the sun de- rive its power?" Needs we must now stop this line of reasoning. Agnostic enough am I to say, "I cannot comprehend, I know not; I am too feeble, too incapable to attempt to reason beyond life in- tricacies that nature spins from out the sun's rays." Turn again to Ossian, "Whence come, thy rays, O Sun! thy everlasting light?' Answer who may. May this speaker not add. Where ends the touch of the sun's ray that brings to us consciousness of the little we can grasp in Infinity's book ? Now you ask: "Is such as this plant pharmacy?" Let me answer by asking in turn : "Is not the very essence of plant pharmacy dependent on life's reservoir, maintained from out the energies of space, if plant pharmacy is a study of plant life?" Have not we the right, is it not our duty to consider this mighty subject as a whole as well as in detail? We live and have our being but by the grace of vegetation's service ? NOTE: John Uri Lloyd (1849-1936) founded Lloyd Brothers Pharmacy in Cincinnati, and was responsible for the formulation of a body of plant extracts called Specific Medicines (following the recommendations of Scudder). The pharmacy closed in the early 1960's, but his legacy is still present as the Lloyd Library, the largest library of medical plant books in the world, his pioneering work in colloidal chemistry, and several works of fiction, including "Stringtown in the Pike (A best seller of its day) and the mystical "Etidorhpa". The culmination of his work (in my opinion) was the Third Revision of "King's American Dispensatory" in 1898, 2200 pages of the best PLANT Pharmacy ever assembled. He was perhaps the only true American alchemist. Michael Moore