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CHAPTER 7

Drugs and Medicinal Plants

The words, "drugs" and "medicines", have so many connotations that it is difficult to determine whether a difference exists between them, or whether they are the same. We will not enter this argument and use the words as though they were interchangeable. Obviously, not all materials that fall into these two headings are derived from plants. Mineral and animal substances are, or may be, used in the same way—to alleviate, change, or destroy some condition existing in the human or animal mind or body. We do not usually consider these substances used to cure plant diseases as medicines or drugs, but some might extend the name to such materials as are effective in making for healthier plants. We speak of diseased plants, but the cure is seldom thought of as administering medicine or drugs. For an excellent discussion of plant diseases, see Wellman "Plants have Diseases" in this same series.

Medicines are, I suppose, more confined to curing disease than are drugs, which may be employed in quite different ways to bring pleasure, or perhaps escape from reality. Disease is another difficult concept, for in curing disease, we assume some ameliorating change in the patient. Disease may cover ills of the mind or body caused by all sorts of internal and external agents. Whatever definitions are, or have been, applied it is evident that the search for drugs and medicines has continued through the ages, and that many materials that had real or fancied properties have been employed. Plants have provided a major source of materials, and still provide spectacular cures for various physical and mental ills.

The whole plant kingdom, representatives from each of the major categories, provide some sort of remedy. Today's relative health and freedom from bacterial diseases is largely dependent upon the production of antibiotics