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[244] valleys. There were probably at least three laboratories for the preparation of indigenous drugs established: one in Lincolnton, North Carolina; one at Macon, Georgia, and one west of the Mississippi, in which tinctures and extracts were manufactured to some extent. One tincture in particular, well remembered and popularly known in field and hospital service as ‘old indig.,’ was used as a substitute for quinine in malarial fevers, a compound tincture of willow, dogwood, and yellow-poplar barks. Efforts were made to cultivate the poppy (Papaver somniferum) in Florida and North Carolina, and the unripe seed-capsules, when incised, yielded or exuded a dark gum, not unlike Turkish opium in its effects. Decoctions and tinctures of Jamestown or common jimson-weed, leaves and seeds (Stramonium), and may pop root (Passiflora incarnata) were employed for the relief of pain, both internally and as a local application. Boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum) and yellow jasmin (Gelsemium sempervirens), the former used as an antipyretic and the latter to control nervous symptoms in fever; queen's-root (Stillingia), in all conditions of depraved blood; the inner bark and pith of the common alder for making salve for ulcers and chronic suppurating wounds; and fresh slippery-elm bark, the root and leaves of the mauva plant, and the leaves of the prickly pear, or cactus, when shorn of its spines, well pounded and macerated, as an emollient poultice, were among the most prominent of the indigenous remedies. Many Confederate surgeons reported that at no time did they fail in having an ample supply of three most important drugs, quinine, morphia, and chloroform. Furthermore, in all the writer's service there was not a death from chloroform in field or hospital. Dr. Chaille reported one case, immediately following an amputation just above the knee. Other surgeons reported good success or ‘luck,’ among whom could be recalled Dr. J. B. Cowan, medical director, Forrest's cavalry; Dr. J. M. Keller, medical director, Trans-
Review of Reviews. New York. 1912.
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