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7 - 6

cure," because the numbers of times in the past when a substance seemed well
on the way through all the testing procedures with positive results, when
finally tested on human patients, did not have the desired effect. Yet the
quest continues, for one type of cancer (mentioned earlier) has been checked
by the extract from a very common plant.

I have described the procedures above in a very sketchy manner. A very
large number of detailed steps have been omitted only to indicate that any
drug, no matter whether discovered in modern times or having a much longer
history, has had to go through countless numbers of tests before its true use
could be identified. Even the oldest drugs went through a sort of testing
procedure even though the practitioners and consumers may not have considered
themselves as testers or guinea pigs. How long did it take for man to dis-
cover the benefit of quinine as an agent in the cure of malaria? We have no
way to know, but the period between first test and final application to the
specific disease must have been very long. In a sense, we owe a tremendous
debt to those early patients who willingly swallowed the medicine man's bitter
concoction without any sure knowledge that he wasn't going to his reward.

Today, although some of our most important drugs are synthetic--compounded
from simpler starting materials in the laboratory or pharmaceutical industry
tanks--by far the largest number are derived from plants, and it is rare that
we find a drug to be administered that does not have materials derived from
several plants. Perhaps the active substance is a single derivative, highly
refined, but it is frequently carried in or dispersed in another plant pro-
duct, and the taste, odor and sight are made more pleasing by the addition of
extracts from spices, flavoring materials (i.e., vanilla, mint, et al.) and
vegetable coloring (Bixa orellana, producing a red or yellow pigment, is one
of the favorites). Other plant products are frequently employed in filtering
or purifying the crude drug. Carefully prepared charcoal may be used to remove