Volume 1

Drugs and medicines of North America : a publication devoted to the historical and scientific discussion of botany, pharmacy, chemistry and therapeutics of the medical plants of North America, their constituents, products and sophistications ... v. 1-2; [Apr. 1884-June 1887].

Date:: 1884-1887. [Cincinnati, Lloyd Library, 1930-31]

Credit: Drugs and medicines of North America : a publication devoted to the historical and scientific discussion of botany, pharmacy, chemistry and therapeutics of the medical plants of North America, their constituents, products and sophistications ... v. 1-2; [Apr. 1884-June 1887]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$The foregoing record may be modified by circumstances of a local nature, such as the opening of a railroad through a new country ; and in one case we know the market to have been temporarily (locally) glutted with hydrastis from this reason. It will therefore be seen that with hydrastis the periods of abundance in market are not necessarily connected with the season’s influence on the growth of the drug, although a long, wet autumn favors its collection. Indeed, this plant is of slow growth, and the question of its supply in market does not seem to be dependent on a favorable season. Fluctuations in Price.—In arriving at the statistics herein tabulated, we must call attention to the fact that little dependence can be placed on old com- mercial prices currents.* Persons familiar with indigenous drugs will recognize the fact that list prices to the consumers of these drugs are not altered, unless some unusual reason exists for making a change, f Therefore we shall give this record from information furnished us by dealers in the drug and our own experience. About 1844, Mr. Joseph West was a member of the Shaker village near Lebanon, Ohio. He distinctly recalls the early commercial history of the drug, and supports his evidence with figures that give the commercial value of hydrastis between the years 1844 and 1850 at $1.00 per pound. Dr. T. C. Thorp, of Cincinnati, an early dealer in indigenous drugs, corrob- orates him in these particulars ; and we are thus enabled to show that at first hydrastis commanded a very much higher price than it has at any subse- quent day.]; The first demand was supplied at a price of $1.00 per pound, and from that the drug fell to forty cents, and afterward to twenty-five cents. It sold at $1.00 in i84p.§ In continuing the commercial history, we find that it declined in price until it reached this valuation of about twenty-five cents per pound, which may be said to have been the average price between the period of its fictitious valu- ation in the early day, and the close of the war. || After the war the depression in trade that followed caused hydrastis to further decline, until its ruling price was from twelve to fifteen cents, and finally the price paid to the collector was only about eight cents. This did not repay the labor of collection, even to the class of people who dig roots, and the drug * In the early days hydrastis was mostly in demand by physicians who carried their own drugs, and hence it was not named in regular drug lists. |The writer has known some of these drugs to be sold for less than cost, rather than change the price temporarily. t There is little use to’search elsewhere than abont Cincinnati for a record of this drug from first hands at that period. Then Cincinnati was the headquarters for American drugs, and hydrastis especially came into market almost entirely from this city. \ Mr. West writes us, '* Prior to 1846, we dug and sold golden seal root at $1.00 per pound.” | Dr. Thorp states that during the war there was a market for all the hydrastis that came into Cincinnati at *5 cents. There was a scarcity in 1867 and 1868, the prices being 50 cents (1867) and 40 cents (1868}, as shown by sales of Mr. West; but this was simply one of the periods of scarcity to which we refer elsewhere.$