BRITISH EMPIRE DRUG PRODUCTION

BRITISH EMPIRE DRUG PRODUCTIONAuthor(s): Maurice AshbySource: Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, Vol. 90, No. 4605 (JANUARY 23rd, 1942), pp.138-151Published by: Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and CommerceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41359850 .

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138 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS Jan. 23, I942

DOMINIONS AND COLONIES SECTION

Tuesday, December i6th, 1941

Arthur Mortimer, O.B.E., in the Chair

The Chairman, in introducing the lecturer, said : This afternoon's gathering gives an opportunity for all of us to realise that such organisations as the Royal Society of Arts, the Imperial Institute and other similar bodies, are there to be used. So often we find that information gets into archives and remains there, but in the Ministries, as we know them to-day, there is much more desire to use information, and it is to be hoped that those of you who hear Dr. Ashby's lecture this afternoon will, if you can, make use of the Imperial Institute.

The following paper was then read : -

BRITISH EMPIRE DRUG PRODUCTION

By Dr. Maurice Ashby, D.I.C., A.R.C.S., Plant and Animal Products Departmenty Imperial Institute

The title of this afternoons paper leaves open such a wide field that perhaps, first of all, I should be a little more explicit.

In bygone days most of our useful medicines were derived from plants, but as modern chemistry has progressed an ever bigger part has been played in medicine by manufactured chemicals. However, the plant drugs have by no means been ousted from the field, and we are still very much dependent on them. It is with the cultivation and collection of these plant drugs in the Empire that I wish to deal this afternoon, and, with your permission, we shall not be concerned with the chemical industry side. This still leaves us with plenty of ground to cover, for under the term " drugs

" the pharmacist includes a host of items which you might not expect - spices such as cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg, insecticides such as derris and pyrethrum. We cannot hope to deal with them all, so we shall have to pick and choose those that are the most important and the most interesting.

You will naturally expect me to look at the subject from a war-time point of view - which really means : Can the Empire supply our needs in emergency ; Let us therefore have a glance at the supply position as it was before the war, so that we can better appreciate the problems which the war has brought in this field.

One of the first things that we find on reviewing the position is that we are normally dependent on imports from overseas for practically the whole of our requirements of crude drugs, only a very small quantity being produced at home. Furthermore, a large proportion of our pre-war imports came from countries outside the Empire, the Continent of Europe being our main source



Jan. 23, 1942 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS I39

of supply of such vital drugs as belladonna, digitalis, henbane and stramonium, besides many others. Such a situation was bound to give rise to serious difficulties with the outbreak of war. Most of the European supplies were soon cut off completely, and with other foreign sources the currency question loomed large, not to mention shipping problems. Stocks had doubtless been built up, but we want to keep these in reserve as far as possible.

It is a disturbing picture when we have to make a balance sheet out of it to meet the needs of the country. Obviously it must take time to improve the supply position, so the first concern is to lighten the other side of the balance by economy in consumption.

There are some needs which must be met, supplies of drugs which may be a matter of life and death, and here consumption is likely to be much increased as a direct result of the war, for example, in the treatment of military and civilian casualties. These are demands which cannot be cut down, and must have first consideration.

Secondly, we have to consider supplies of raw materials for our chemical industry, so that the export trade of manufactured fine chemicals may be kept going. To some of you this may seem rather unimportant, but in securing foreign exchange and keeping open our foreign markets it is not by any means a factor to neglect. Even to the United States, a country making most of her chemicals at home and importing only about 2 per cent, of her requirements, we have a valuable export. During the last six months of 1940 the United States imported 3J million dollars' worth of chemicals from this country, of which some half million dollars' worth were derived from crude drugs. I know this is not enough to build many warships, but it is sufficient to show that it is worth some effort to maintain our chemical export. It must be remembered, too, that there are other countries entirely dependent on imports for their

supplies of fine chemicals, and we must try to keep our place in these markets for the benefit of post-war trade.

We can still do a great deal to economise by reducing consumption of less vital drugs and employing, where possible, substitutes or synthetics which may be more readily available. Indeed, there are quite a few items which can be cut out altogether without any great hardship. Here we have the guidance of the Medical Research Council's War Memorandum No. 3 on Economy in the Use of Drugs in War-time , and I may add that a supplement to this memorandum has just been issued. The National War Formulary, which has also just been published, should prove a big factor in introducing these economies into dispensing. It is fortunate indeed that our chemical industry is in so much

stronger a position than it was in 19 14, making possible the supply of synthetic chemicals which can in many cases be employed as substitutes for drugs which were formerly imported.

Now let us turn to the other side of the balance sheet - that of supplies. Here one thinks first of all of home production, but we cannot expect to grow in this



I40 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS Jan. 23, 1942

country medicinal herbs which require a warmer climate than we can offer them, so the possibilities are limited.

There was, before the war, a small production of the essential herbs belladonna, foxglove and henbane, all of which are native to this country, and this has been augmented with the aim of meeting vital requirements. The collection of suitable wild material is also being organised. These activities, however, cannot do more than make a small contribution to the supply problem as a whole, and it is rather with production in the Empire overseas that I am concerned.

To look at a map of the world and see the wide extent and distribution of Empire countries one would imagine that we could supply absolutely any type of climate " on tap," as it were. Add to this the fact that drug cultivation does not as a rule take up any very large area, and the question naturally arises : Why do we not produce all our drug requirements within the Empire ? This is a question which I want to try and answer for you this afternoon, and at the same time tell you something of what Empire countries are doing towards the production of drugs. There is plenty of development going on, but it is work which is fraught with problems, and progress must necessarily be gradual.

In the first place the growing of medicinal plants is not always by any means a simple matter, especially if it is a case of introducing the plant into a new country where the climate or soil conditions may not be quite the same as in its original home. Let us take a look at the grower's task and try to understand his difficulties.

Drug plants are grown for the active principles contained in them ; it is to these substances, whether alkaloids, glycosides or volatile oils, etc., that the plants owe their medicinal value. Just as you would be interested in the sugar content if you were growing sugar cane, so the grower of drug plants is interested in the content of active principle, which makes all the difference to him between success and failure. In the case of most food crops our knowledge has progressed to a stage where we understand fairly well the factors favouring good yields, but the position with medicinal plants is still very obscure. In most cases we cannot even do more than guess why these different chemical substances are present at all or what rôle they play in the plant's physiological activity. As a generalisation, it seems likely that many of these substances found in plants are really waste products from the chemical breakdown which is always going on to produce the energy with which the plant grows and carries on its life. Having no excretory system comparable with animals, the plant cannot get rid of these waste products, so they must be stored up in some convenient form. According to this theory, then, the active principles which we value may constitute the plant's scrap heap.

With a number of drug crops the quantity of active substance stored up in the plant, and sometimes, indeed, its very nature, seems to be closely dependent on the vagaries of weather and climate and on the influence of soil factors. As



Jan. 23, 1942 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS 14I

a further complication, some of the species grown include different physiological races, which may be identical in appearance but very different where yield of active principle is concerned. It is often very difficult to sort out these two factors- the influence of environment and the effects of inherent physiological differences. Let me give you some examples.

Various species of Ocimum (Basils), which are small bushy herbs, widely distri- buted in warm-temperate and tropical countries, yield useful essential oils. Although the different species are very much alike in appearance, there is an extraordinary diversity in the composition of the oils obtained from them. But we meet the real puzzle when we find that samples of oil from the same species grown in different areas are quite different in their constituents. In 1918, the Imperial Institute published reports on the analyses of two samples of Ocimum gratissimum oil. The first, which was received from the Seychelles Islands, contained 62 per cent, of phenols, principally eugenol, while in the second sample, from Ivory Coast, there were 44 per cent, of phenols made up almost entirely of thymol ! Is this an effect of climate or is it a matter of different physiological races of O. gratissimum growing in the Ivory Coast and the Seychelles ?

I could tell you of more cases, similar to this, with other ocimum oils ; in fact, you never know exactly what you will obtain from them. One other should be mentioned as being of special interest, for it may prove a source of camphor on a commercial scale. Oil from Ocimum kilimandscharicum grown in the Sudan has been found to contain 77 per cent, of camphor, of which 62 per cent, could be separated out quite easily by freezing to minus 5°C. Furthermore, the yield of oil obtained from the plants was relatively very high - about 5 per cent, from the air-dry leaves. This species does not grow wild in the Sudan, having been introduced from Kenya, but in its native haunt it has not given nearly such a

good yield of oil. The Russians have been particularly interested in the possibilities of camphor

production from ocimum oil, and have undertaken experiments on quite a

large scale- a yield of 20 tons of medicinal camphor was said to have been obtained in 1936. The plant grown is Ocimum canum (the Camphor Basil) obtained from North Africa, and it is understood that some of the Kenya seed was also sent. A point worth noting is that plants harvested in August have been found in the U.S.S.R. to give an oil containing only 47 per cent, of camphor, while the oil from plants harvested in October yielded over 70 per cent. With these complications to deal with we have still a long way to go before production can be put on an industrial basis.

In telling you about the ocimum oils I have chosen an example where we are still very much in the dark. Generally speaking, we are a little better able to sort out the effects of climate from those of physiological strains. It is fairly well known, for example, that there are two types of camphor tree, one yielding solid camphor from its oil, while the other does not ; but the two cannot be

distinguished morphologically.




Artemisia brevifolia , the herb from which Indian santonica is obtained, occurs in the Kurrum Valley in two forms which can only be distinguished in their younger stages. At maturity, when the flower heads are collected, they appear identical, yet one form yields santonin in commercial quantities while the other does not. It has been found that when young the santonin-yielding form has stems of a reddish colour, those of the other form being grey, but by the time the plants are mature, both forms are of an even brownish colour. This discovery, which enables the plants to be distinguished if observations are made at the right time of year, has done much to help the Indian santonin industry.

The artemisias are plants with a wide geographical distribution, and several of them contain santonin in small quantities. Those richest in santonin seem to favour arid climates and poor saline soils, and if they are grown under more favourable conditions the yield of active principle goes down.

This is noticeable with certain other drug plants which have their home in poor, barren soils and dry climates. It seems that rainfall and moist conditions generally must interfere with the formation of the active principles concerned. Ephedra herb, from which we obtain ephedrine used in colds, hay fever, etc., is said to be affected by a single rain storm, and the content of ephedrine is temporarily reduced. In experiments carried out in the Kenya Highlands with ephedra from China and India the environment proved too wet in many cases, though in some of the drier stations promising results were obtained from one Indian species. (The report on these trials was published in the East African Agricultural Journal , October, 1941.) Similarly, the plants from which gum arabic and gum tragacanth are obtained seem to yield best in the driest areas of their distribution. Chinese rhubarb, grown under favourable conditions, as in this country, will produce a root ready for harvesting in three years or so, instead of six or seven, but it is much inferior in quality to the Chinese drug. Here, the rate of growth and conditions of drying have doubtless got something to do with the effect. In this connection I might refer to the great importance of correct drying, for material can easily be spoilt if faulty methods are employed.

From these examples you can appreciate that, where the difference between a content of active substance of say 2*0 per cent, and 1*5 per cent, may decide whether an industry is to succeed or fail, the production of any drug crop in a new country is not a matter to be undertaken lightly. The plant may grow there already, but the local race may be poor ; while if a good race is introduced you cannot foretell just how the new climate will affect it. Stocks can be improved by selection and breeding, but this takes time, and demands facilities for chemical sampling. There are drugs, as for example cascara bark, where only a clinical test will give a true picture of their value, and in this particular case the bark must be stored for at least a year before it can be tested.

I have not yet mentioned plant diseases, but these can be an important factor. A few years ago there was every prospect of a flourishing peppermint oil industry in Kenya. A strain of peppermint had been introduced which yielded an oil




of excellent quality, and the plants appeared to be flourishing - then they were attacked by mint rust. This is a disease which is common enough in this country, but can normally be kept in check. Under Kenya eonditions, however, the plants were growing more or less continuously all the year round, and without a proper dormant period the disease has proved extremely difficult to control.

Finally, I must say a word about the economic side which, after all, is just as important as the production side, for no grower will want to produce at a loss. As we have still so much ground to cover I cannot do more than enumerate the main factors which have bearing on it. Cost of production is, of course, largely determined by labour costs in the producing country, but the type of agriculture does not always lend itself to drug production. From the market point of view it must be remembered that, with most drugs, the demand is strictly limited, and over-production is fatally easy. There is also competition from synthetics which must be watched, though it does not as a rule constitute any serious threat except in cases where acute shortage has spurred on research into the production of synthetic substitutes at a low price. You will appreciate that it is rather a matter for Government action than for commercial enterprise to take in hand the emergency production during the war, and this is being wisely looked after by such bodies as the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in Australia and the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research in New Zealand.

In trying to shov/ you some of the problems met with in drug production perhaps I have painted the picture so black that some of you may be wondering how it is that we ever get any drugs at all. You must remember, however, that one naturally picks on the most striking examples to explain a point. I simply wanted to convey to you some idea of the type of difficulty which has to be faced, so that you can better appreciate the nature of the work which is being carried on in our Dominions and Colonies.

Now, in the short time which remains, I want you to take a look at some of this work. We will start with Canada.

Canada Canada is a country concerned rather with large-scale farming operations,

and is normally little interested in the cultivation of drug crops. The possibilities of emergency production of essential herbs are under survey. There are a few rather interesting native medicinal herbs collected from the woods, such as Golden Seal ( Hydrastis ), Senega root, and Black Snakeroot ( Cimicifuga ), sometimes known by the rather quaint name of the Black Cohosh. The exports of Senega root are quite substantial in normal times, being of the order of 150 tons per year, valued at around $100,000. In spite of this, one cannot class any of these as drugs of special therapeutic value, and the most important item from Canada is cascara bark.



144 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS Jan. 23, 1942

This bark is obtained from a small woodland tree, not unlike our hazel in general appearance, which grows wild from California to Alaska along the lower slopes of the mountains bordering the western coast of North America. Cascara sagrada, as we know it, cannot be made from the freshly dried bark, for this contains ingredients which cause severe griping. On storage, however, the bark matures, and gradual chemical changes which take place make it suitable for medicinal use. It is kept in storage by the manufacturing firms for at least one year ; some claim to keep it as many as five or even seven years. As I mentioned earlier, there is no chemical test by which the value of cascara bark can be assessed ; only clinical tests afford any really satisfactory evidence.

With this complication, and the time taken to grow the tree and mature the bark before testing it, you can imagine that it is a slow business introducing cascara as a crop into a new area. It is quite five years before you can tell if your bark will be of any value, and a good deal longer before you can hope for production in commercial quantities. Lack of appreciation of this has led to a depressing outlook for supplies of cascara during the next few years. The bark, which is quite a newcomer to medicine as crude drugs go, came into use about sixty years ago, and has been collected all along from wild trees. It was obtained by wholesale peeling of the trunks, which, of course, kills the trees, and consumption has been so large that the wild stands both in the United States and Canada are now nearly exhausted. Planting and cultivation are being undertaken based on a pruning system by which one branch can be peeled each year and the tree kept alive. Another possibility is to extract young coppice twigs entire, but this does not appear promising. Before we have the supplies from this new planting, however, it looks as though cascara will not be so plentiful as it has been.

As we shall see later, cascara has been successfully introduced into Kenya, where there is a small industry ; it also grows quite well in this country, but has only been introduced experimentally.

Australia and New Zealand There are two most important items which have interested both these

countries, namely agar-agar and ergot. Agar is a mucilaginous substance derived from certain seaweeds. Unfortu-

nately there are very few kinds of seaweed from which suitable material can be obtained, and all of these are relatively small in size, so that their collection is apt to be rather laborious.

Hitherto the world's supplies of agar have come from Japan, where in some localities elaborate measures are taken to influence local currents in the sea, and provide anchorage for the seaweeds, so as to ensure a good harvest - in fact, a kind of cultivation.

In order to obtain the agar the seaweeds are first dried, then washed in fresh




water, boiled and finally the material is purified by filtration and a freezing process. In Japan this freezing is provided for by the cold winter weather.

We have lost our Japanese source of agar now, but it is encouraging to learn that both Australia and New Zealand seem hopeful of producing really good quality agar on a commercial scale. They have the right species of seaweeds there in some quantity, and it seems that all that is needed now is to perfect the technique of manufacture. Fortunately, with their large meat industries, both countries are well off for the refrigeration equipment needed in processing agar.

We must not give way to premature optimism, though, for everything depends upon the quality of the material. The use of agar which makes it of such supreme importance is in bacteriological work as a culture medium. One might say, almost, that bacteriology is built up on the behaviour of cultures grown on agar, and without it we should have to start again from the beginning. Fortunately, the quantities needed for bacteriological work are very small -

only of the order of three or four tons per year. Our total imports of agar in normal times amounted to nearly 200 tons per year, of which a small amount was used in pharmacy as an emulsifying agent and in various proprietary medicines. There are a variety of other uses which account for the rest - e.g. in sweetmeats, jellies and ice creams, and to a large extent in the meat-canning industry (here Australia and New Zealand have a big consumption).

Ergot is a highly specialised fungal parasite attacking certain cereals and grasses, notably rye. The life-history is rather involved, but the details need not bother us now. Briefly, what happens is this : minute spores formed from ergots of the previous year infect the grass flowers as they open, and instead of the grain developing, a curved black body, about to 1" long, the ergot or "

mummy," as the Americans call it, appears in its place. There may be two or three in a single head of grain. They may either be collected by hand picking or separated from the grain by screening, or in various other ways. Commercial supplies came normally from Spain and Portugal, also Poland and the U.S.S.R.

Ergot contains a number of different alkaloids, and the proportions in which they occur vary with the type of ergot, that is to say, whether it is on rye, fescue or other grasses. There are doubtless different races of the fungus, each specialising on a particular host. Only ergot of rye, valued chiefly for its ergotoxine and ergometrine, is officiai, but ergot of fescue, which is fairly common ifi New Zealand, is rich in ergotamine, and is being shipped to this country for extraction of the alkaloid. There is also an ergot on marram grass, which is reported from some localities in New Zealand and is being investigated.

Infection can be brought about artificially by spraying with a suspension in water of spores from last year's ergots, just when the rye crop is flowering. The success of the operation seems to be largely dependent on whether moist weather conditions are prevailing at the time of spraying. During this last season large- scale experiments in the artificial production of ergot on rye were undertaken in Australia for the British Government. The results of these were noted in the




Pharmaceutical Journal for November 15th. Quite a good yield of ergots was obtained in some cases, but owing to the exceptionally dry season the results on the whole were rather disappointing.

One cannot very well leave Australia without saying a word about eucalyptus oil, for Australia is, of course, the home of the eucalyptus tree. There are over 200 species of Eucalyptus, and naturally enough a number of different oils. That distilled from E. dives is, perhaps, of special interest, as it is rich in piperitone, from which menthol and thymol can be made. Tea- tree oil, obtained from species of Melaleuca (of the same family as the eucalyptus tree), is also worthy of note as an oil with strong antiseptic properties. Finally, we might mention Duhoisia , an Australian herb containing atropine-like alkaloids, which has been proposed as a local substitute for belladonna.

New Zealand, with its cool-temperate climate, could probably produce most of the medicinal herbs which we formerly imported from Central Europe, but the high cost of labour would make this uneconomic. She is, however, supplying us with leaves of foxglove, which was well enough established in the Dominion some thirty years ago to be listed as a noxious weed. In addition, experimental work with a number of drug crops is being carried out on a small scale near Wellington, so that we shall know what New Zealand could contribute in an emergency.

India, Burma, Ceylon and Malaya These four make rather a formidable combination to deal with in a few

minutes, covering the whole range of tropical products in addition to India's big potential output of

" temperate

" drugs from the Himalayas. We must content

ourselves, therefore, with picking out two or three of the most important items. Two drugs which we cannot very well pass over are cinchona and ipecacuanha,

for in war-time they become definite strategic materials. No armies campaigning in hot countries can afford to be without the drugs to hold in check the menace of malaria and dysentery.

The problems of cinchona cultivation are somewhat involved, and merge rather into the realm of politics, but I will try to sum up the position. The governing factor is that Java produces about 90 per cent, of the world's supplies of the bark and holds a virtual monopoly of the market. The Dutch have sometimes been accused of taking advantage of this position to do a bit of hatd bargaining, but it is only fair to say that cinchona bark and quinine are costly to produce. The industry in Java has only been built up by years of patient and well-organised scientific work, and has been kept on its feet through the regulation of production to maintain prices at an economic level. Prior to the " Cinchona Agreement

" made in 19 13 between the growers and the quinine manufacturers there was over-production leading to disastrous price slumps every few years. It was just such a slump which finally put Ceylon out of business - she had been the largest producer in the world in the i88o's.



Jan. 23, I942 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS 147

The point at issue with cinchona cultivation is really this. While restricted production is necessary for economic working, can we from the humanitarian point of view say that there is over-production when it is estimated that there are in India alone about 100 million people suffering from malaria at any one time ? Tremendous subsidies would be necessary in order to produce at a cost within the reach of most of these people, and it seems that the only hope of achieving any real solution of this problem lies in international co-operation and a pooling of resources.

Indian production, which is still largely confined to Bengal and Madras, has always aimed at satisfying local needs, but large quantities of quinine have to be imported from Java. There have been difficulties in organisation and finance which have prevented expansion of cultivation on an " All-India "

basis. There are also technical difficulties, for Cinchona ledgeriana , which is the only species really worth growing, is very particular about its climatic and soil requirements. The conditions in Java seem to be ideal, but in many of the localities where it has been tried in India either the soil has been unsuitable or the dry season has been too long. When it really seemed that a suitable locality had been found in Lower Burma, there came extra heavy rains and the plantation was almost washed awray bodily. However, it was estimated in a Report on the Prospects of Cinchona Cultivation, published two years ago, that there are some 38,000 acres in India suitable for the crop. The area at present under cinchona is somewhere about 5,000 acres.

Cinchona cultivation has been revived in Ceylon during recent years, but this is mainly C. succirubra , which does not give a good yield of quinine. There has also been experimental work in Malaya, Tanganyika, and on a small scale in other countries.

The story for ipecacuanha is much simpler. South America, its original home, is still practically speaking the only source of supply, and the species required by the British Pharmacopoeia is restricted to Brazil. We have

flourishing industries in Bengal and Malaya, but the quantities produced are

relatively very small. The area under cultivation is being increased, but

ipecacuanha is a difficult crop to grow, and takes some three years to mature, so development must be slow.

Of more immediate interest are the results of experiments in Malaya, in which new methods of drying the root were tested out, for it seems from these that there is good prospect of a marked improvement in quality.

Before passing on from Malaya I should just mention the derris root industry. It is perhaps a little odd that derris, which is first and foremost an agricultural insecticide, should be classed by the pharmacist as a drug - there is, however, no doubt about its being a drug from the insect's point of view. The active substances concerned, of which rotenone is the most important, are harmless to the higher animals, but extremely toxic to cold-blooded creatures, affecting their respiration. Rotenone-containing roots such as derris and its South




American rival cube, has long been used by native tribes as a means of stupefying fish.

Malaya is the leading producer of derris root, and by selection and breeding work strains have been developed which have a far higher rotenone content than the original wild material, and that produced by other countries. Exports have risen from about 100 tons in 193 1 to nearly 1,500 tons in 1939, and production is still expanding.

In Ceylon the citronella oil industry assumes added importance now that trade with Japan is at a standstill, for menthol and thymol are manufactured from this oil, and the menthol can replace the natural product from Japanese peppermint oil. There is an annual export of about 1 J million pounds of the oil.

India can provide us with a number of items which would otherwise be hard to obtain in sufficient quantities. For certain purposes Karaya gum, obtained from Sterculia mens , is proving a satisfactory substitute for some of the more costly gums like gum tragacanth and gum arabic. The possibilities of the Himalayas are endless. Belladonna and henbane grow wild over about 6,000 feet, and foxglove has been widely introduced at similar altitudes. Some of the belladonna is said to be of excellent quality. As you know, Indian valerian and Indian squill have been recognised by the British Pharmacopoeia, and with Indian colchicum (С. luteum) are being imported into this country. Liquorice is grown in Baluchistan and Chitral, but it is rather poor. Indian ephedra herb has been exported in large quantities, mostly to the United States, but, like many Indian drugs, the quality is erratic. We know that some of the Indian species are rich in ephedrin, but the plants grow in such remote areas that it is difficult to organise collection of the right species only and to take into account such factors as the best season for gathering the material. These difficulties are common to most of the drug crops from this area. Progress is being made all the time, however, a good example being the santonica industry of which I have already spoken. The Agricultural College at Lyallpur is particularly active in this type of work.

Mediterranean and Africa. The two items of primary interest in the Mediterranean area are liquorice

root and squill. It is known that liquorice grows wild alongside rivers in Cyprus and Palestine, and that the roots are of good quality, but it seems doubtful whether supplies can be obtained on any large scale.

Squill, too, is quite widespread in its distribution, but always grows near the sea. It is common in Malta, Cyprus, Palestine, and is said to occur along the coast by Solium, near where the fighting is going on just now. Red squill, which is employed as a rat poison, is another variety of the same plant and occurs with it, but the trade is rather particular to take only the white. On the Continent they are not so fussy, and do not mind taking rat poison in their medicine.



Jan. 23, 1942 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS 149

Samples of white squill sent from Cyprus recently appeared to be of excellent quality, and orders have been placed for larger quantities as soon as they can be shipped.

South Africa provides another area of Mediterranean type of climate, the chief drug products being Cape aloes and buchu leaves.

East and West Africa are sharply contrasted in their type of agriculture, and make an interesting comparison from that point of view. In the West African colonies there is native agriculture concentrating on a few big crops like cocoa and oil palms. The introduction of small specialised crops like drugs, requiring careful attention in drying and preparation for the market, would be very laborious and not likely to yield good results. Furthermore, there are not many drug crops which would do well in the West African climate, owing to the extremes of wet and dry conditions at different seasons. Hence we have little fresh development here that is of interest to us.

East Africa, with its white planters and wide range of climate, has always been particularly interested in the production of drugs and essential oils as cash crops. A great deal of experimenting has gone on, sometimes with successful results, sometimes otherwise. I can only touch on a few. Cascara cultivation was started in 1919, and has been moderately successful. In quality the bark falls but little below that from Canada and the United States. Some growers have had trouble with a fungus disease attacking their trees, and attempts have been made to overcome this by grafting the cascara on to a stock of a hardy local species of Rhamnus , namely R . prinoides. I have no information as to what measure of success these experiments are meeting. There is the experimental work on ephedra and on ocimum oils as a source of camphor to which I have already referred.

The most striking success has been the pyrethrum industry, and with this I must close. The plant was first introduced into Kenya in 1928, and by 1933 commercial production was beginning to get under way - some 13 tons were

produced in 1933-4, but three years later production had topped 1,000 tons. Last year the exports to the United States amounted to some 4,600 tons, valued at г' million dollars. This has resulted from the fortunate combination of an environment which proved ideal for the plant, and an excellent marketing organisation to maintain the quality of the exported material.

DISCUSSION. Dr. S. E. Chandler, Plant and Animal Products Department, Imperial Institute,

said : As Dr. Ashby has said, the question implicit in his lecture is, how far can the Empire rely on its own resources for its needs of drugs in time of war ? And we must remember that the needs are not those of the United Kingdom only, but of many other countries in the Empire, some of which have huge populations. The fact that the question was raised in the war of twenty-five years ago, and is again raised to-day, might suggest that the answer quantitatively, at any rate, is not satisfactory ; but I cannot help thinking that the supply in time of war is regulated




by conditions of production in time of peace. Dr. Ashby has mentioned controlling and limiting factors which influence that aspect of the case. Once we are through the ordeal of war it is to be hoped that we shall not let another long period go by without trying our utmost to produce within the Empire those drugs which we believe can be produced economically, or whose production can be made economic, if the drugs are essential to our needs. Twenty-five years ago the military situation gave us little anxiety with regard to cinchona, but at the present day happenings in the Indo-Malayan region must give one seriously to think.

Dr. James Coutts, Ph.C., Ph.D., F.R.S.E., Pharmacist, St. Bartholomew's Hospital, said : I wonder if Dr. Ashby could give an indication of the extent to which extraction of active principles from crude drugs goes on in the countries of origin ? We know that a number of crude drugs are brought over to this country and the extraction is done here, involving large shipping costs, whereas the refined material could be got over with practically no cost for shipping. I understand some drugs, such as santonica, are being extracted in the countries of origin, but I do not know how far it extends to other drugs.

Dr. Ashby replied : Except in India, there has not been much development, and there most of the Indian manufactured drugs are for local consumption. In East Africa there is the possibility of manufacturing from local cinchona bark, but it is doubtful if this could be for export. Until the war there had not been the need for local extraction and manufacture in the growing countries, and the trade in this country preferred to import the crude drugs. With the complications of technique involved and the difficulty of obtaining equipment, the change-over to local extraction is not easily made.

Dr. C. H. Hampshire, Secretary, Pharmacopoeia Commission, said : It is with sadness that one reflects that we are facing to-day the same problems as were before us twenty-five years ago in the last war. The British Empire should have, throughout its vast area, in one country or another, the right sort of climatic and other conditions for the production of all the vegetable drugs the Empire requires, whether for its own use or for export. One would Kke to see more done to develop these resources. The occurrence of different proportions of active constituents in an almost unaccountable way in plants which otherwise are referred to the same species, when grown in different situations, is illustrated by Ocimum gratissimum ; and srmilar findings by Penfold and others have been recorded for eucalyptus plants. More information regarding the differences in constituents according to species and geographical source should be on record. The drug trade under war conditions is being asked to accept belladonna imported from India without knowing a great deal about it. With previous experience as guide, the answer to many of these problems should be at hand, but they have to be tackled almost anew.

Sir Harry Lindsay, K.C.I.E., C.B.E., Director of the Imperial Institute, and Chairman of the Dominions and Colonies Committee of the Society, said, in proposing a vote of thanks to the lecturer : The late Sir Arthur Hill, whose memory will always be revered both by the Royal Society of Arts and by the Imperial Institute, suggested at a meeting of our Dominions and Colonies Section Committee that the Empire production of drugs would be an informative and interesting subject for Fellows of the Society and their friends. It was he who recommended Dr. Ashby as the preparer and reader of this paper, and I am sureTyou will agree with me that



Jan. 23, 1942 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS 151

the choice has been an admirable one. The paper has been, if I may say so, both learned and human. As one who is not an expert himself I must say that the human side of it appealed to me very strongly. When Dr. Ashby spoke of cinchona, my mind went back to days of the past in India, when we were trying to popularise the pice packet of quinine with the Indian cultivator ; and what success we had with it ! If we can only arrive at a universal pice packet of quinine in the malarial districts of that country, how successful we should be. I do not forget that quinine is a palliative and not a final corrective to malaria ; but when you have your anti- malarial campaign going on as strongly as it is in India, it is important that it should be supported by a full-dress campaign in favour of popularising the use of quinine. The Government of India have very strong support for their endeavours in the curious but universal taste for quinine amongst Indian cultivators ; they feel that here is something with a real bite in it, which is bound to do them good, and it does. I will not refer in detail to the other points raised by Dr. Ashby, except just to say that he has raised general principles which are of very great and wide interest. For example, it was news to me that what is to the plant a waste product is often to the human being a very valuable product indeed - an indication of co-operation between the plant world and human life which is most inspiring.

Sir Harry Lindsay then thanked the Chairman for presiding, and for his reference to the Imperial Institute. The vote of thanks was carried with acclamation and acknowledged by the Chairman, and the meeting then terminated.

OBITUARY

Sir Oswald Stoll, the famous theatre proprietor, has died in Putney at the age of 74. He was born in Melbourne, and adopted his step-father's surname. Throughout his life Stoll was connected with many and varied theatrical enterprises and controlled a number of theatres, including the Alhambra, the Coliseum and the Stoll Picture Theatre (Kingsway), Ltd. In all the productions with which he was associated Sir Oswald never failed to maintain a high standard, and in the early days he did much to raise the status of music halls both in London and the Provinces. He had been a Life Fellow of the Society since 1920.

Max John Railing, Vice-Chairman and Joint Managing Director of the General Electric Company, has died at the age of 73. Railing was also Vice-President of the British Electrical and Allied Manufacturers' Association and a director of various other electrical companies. He had been associated with the G.E.C, for nearly fifty years, and became a Fellow of this Society in 1936.

NOTES ON BOOKS

The Social Function of Art. By F. R. O'Neill. London : Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co. Ltd. 65.

It has become necessary, or at any rate expedient, for theorists to make out a case for the social character of art. Apparently it is no longer enough to take for granted that art is a matter of spiritual life, and that spiritual life can be led more or less



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BRITISH EMPIRE DRUG PRODUCTION