stamp went through
the moistening process.

* * * * *

ERYTHROXYLON.

[Footnote: From an "Ephemeris of Materia Medica, Pharmacy, Therapeutics,
and Collateral Information." By Edward E. Squibb, M.D., Edward H. Squibb,
S.B., M.D., and Charles F. Squibb, A.B.]

COCA.

The condition of the principal markets of the world for this drug has
recently been exceptionally bad. That is, whether good coca was sought
for in the ports of Central and South America, or in London, Hamburg, or
New York, the search, even without limitation in price, was almost
invariably unsuccessful. Not that the drug, independent of quality, was
scarce, for hundreds of bales were accessible at all times; but the
quality was so poor as to be quite unfit for use. The samples, instead of
being green and fragrant, were brown and odorless, or musty and
disagreeable, at once condemning the lots they represented, to the most
casual observation, and yet the price was high enough to have represented
a good article. The best that could be done by the most careful buyers
was to accept occasional parcels, the best of which were of very inferior
quality, and therefore unfit for medicinal uses, and these at very high
prices. Coca is well known to be a very sensitive and perishable drug,
only fit for its somewhat equivocal uses when fresh and green, and well
cared for in packing and transportation. Very much like tea in this and
other respects, it should be packed and transported with the same care
and pains, in leaded chests, or in some equivalent package. It is very
well known that tea, if managed, transported, handled, and sold as coca
is, would be nearly or quite worthless, and therefore coca managed as the
great mass of it is must be nearly all of it comparatively worthless. If
used as tea is, this would probably soon appear; but when used as a
medicine which has been highly extolled and well advertised, it seems to
go on equally well whether of good or bad quality. It is pretty safe to
say that nineteen-twentieths of the coca seen in this market within the
past two years must be almost inert and valueless, yet all is sold and
used, and its reputation as a therapeutic agent is pretty well kept up.
At least many thousands of pounds of the brown ill-smelling leaf, and of
preparations made from it, are annually sold. And worse than this,
considerable quantities of a handsome looking green leaf, well put up and
well taken c