Medicinal Plants Of The Empire

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 88, 13 April 1940, Page 3 (Supplement)

Medicinal Plants Of The Empire

plants growing within the British Empire. Fortunately, there are many more to help in the war against disease. This is one war that man must wage constantly and that cannot bring shame or dishonour. Disease respects 110 international code and recognises 110 barriers. It comes like a thief in the night. It is no respecter of persons, striking down rich and poor alike. Doctors and scientists, are continually making discoveries of new weapons to cure old ailments. Different herbs with curative properties are discovered, as, for example, the West' Indian plant that has proved so effective in treating leprosy. The use of others dat«e hack to dim and distant times, before the beginning of history. Perhaps, some bv-gone warrior, staunching a wound with a green leaf, found that it healed more rapidly then than with other treatment and so a new healing plant was discovered. It may have been used in that one place for hundreds of years .till science made it available for the rest of mankiud.

Quinine is a drug which was confined to one country, but is now used all over the world. The first record of it waa made in IGOO by a Jesuit missionary in Peru. It is the product of the cinchone tree and until'lßso the supply of the drug came from South America. It wa« introduced about fliis time into India and later into Java,- which is now the world's chief source of quinine. Its greatest use ifi in the treatment of malaria.

Though a curative substance when employed properly, quinine can be injurious if taken in too large quantities. Many other drugs are deadly poisons and should never be u<sed except under strictest medical supervision. Digitalis (commonly foxglove) is one of these. It exerts at least six distinct actions on the heart and is used mainly in treating diseases of that organ. Belladonna, known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, is another poisonous plant, yielding drugs that are beneficial in internal and external medicines.

Perhaps no plant is more dangerous to mankind in its abuse than the ppium poppy. Opium is manufactured from the juice collected from the fully-grown seed heads. It i& then matured by exposure to the air, but not to tie sun. Altogether about 20 alkaloids have been derived from opium. Of these, the best known are morphine and nareotine. They are probably the most valuable narcotics known to medical science. Their effect is to cause 6leep and deaden the consciousness to pain. Their great curse is that they are habit-forming, and those who use them too frequently develop a craving for them that conquers every other desire. Nothing is more terrible than the spectacle of a human being—wasted in Ibody and benumbed in brain —who ie a complete slave to drugs.

It is impossible in so short a space to mention more than a few of the medicinal substances produced in the Empire. Drugs derived from plants play no mean part in the commerce of many of the Dominions and colonies. The animal stock of the Empire plays a large part in the production of substances used in curing diseases. From them we get thyroid, adrenalin, insulin and pepsin, to mention only the best known.