St Louis College of Pharmacy - Prescripto Yearbook (St Louis, MO)

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-----at D IQ li S 13 D I DTC :Q-a -QQ Cacti Mr. John Kessler and Associate Professor E. Clark have started a Cactus garden in the growing room of the Advanced Pharmacognosy Department. They are outlining plans for a three-year project dealing with an extensive study of soil and atmospheric conditions favorable to Cacti. They intend to compare the growth from clippings with the growth from seeds and their growth outdoors with their growth indoors. VX7hen the cacti have grown sufficiently large grafting of different ones will be attempted. It will result in a rather unique plant if the grafting is successfully performed. Growing Cacti in this way will aid in obtaining a great amount of informa- tion about the cultivation and reproduction of the plants. A great help in carrying out this experiment will be the wonderful collection of Cacti at the Missouri Botanical Gardens. Their library also will help because of the amount of reading matter on the subject which may be found there. The project will, no doubt, prove ve1'y interesting because of the group of plants chosen. The Cacti are very unusual plants. They are dicotyledonous plants having modined stems which carry on the functions of a leaf such as photosynthesis C manufacture of plant food from raw materialj transpiration floss of water in the form of vaporj and assimilation fchanging of plant food into living material or protoplasmj. This group of plants is a wonderful example of what Mother Nature will do to aid her children to live in case they are by chance subjected to abnormal conditions. As stated the stem has been modified to take the place of the leaves which otherwise could not exist because of the intense heat of the sun. The whole plant has been covered with a wax-like secretion, which protects it from excess loss of water, and thorny projections which protect it from being devoured by hungry animals. The plants are capable of absorbing and storing up large amounts of water which enables them to withstand long droughts. An interesting example of this is the Barrel Cactus which has saved the lives of many people stranded in the desert because of its quality of storing water. At the present seeds are being planted and a careful study of their germination is being made. The seeds require from three days to a month to germinate. From the time they germinate until the end of the first year they grow very slowly. The second year they grow about twice as much and increase in rate of growth in proportion to their age. The young plants must be carefully handled because of their delicate struc- ture. They may not be transplanted because of this fact as the first roots are like tiny threads running deep down into the soil for moisture. The number of plants in the growing room at present is small but it will be increased from time to time until all the plants from which seeds are obtainable will be in the collection. It is hoped that by next year a large enough number of plants will have been collected so that a display of them may be given in con- nection with the annual drug exhibit at the College. N I9 is 3 2 Page Eighty-Eight

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11---2: D IQ E 5 fir IQ I D T o fs---4-f drugsjg a set of herbs collected in 1860, still well preservedg a complete set of Pharmacopeas of U. S. and also a set of Dispensatories of the U. S.g a number of old prescriptions filled for prominent St. Louisans prior to 1860. There were also some very old drug store fixtures, a collection of old shelf bottles, some bearing labels of obsolete drugs and preparations: an interesting collection of manuscripts, including the first lecture given by Professor O. A. Wfall, 1874 fProfessor W'all died in 19225 : a collection of photographs, together with the history of the Collegeg part of a collection of drugs of the Philippines, exhibited at the St. Louis VVorld's Fair. ln addition to this, there was in contrast, a display of modern Pharma- ceutical equipment now us-ed in colleges and a display of some of the work of students of modern Pharmacy. Much attention was received by a display of preparations made by the students in the Pharmaceutical Laboratoryg the quality of the products was commented upon by the graduates and they were su1'prised to find the preparations represented not a special group for display but a collection of the preparations made by the students in regular laboratory periods, all mixed together. The unique way of showing the crude drugs, their commercial and geograph- ical origin in a display case with samples of the drugs with ribbons attached to a map of the world forming a background appealed to the gathering, This display was made possible by the courtesy of Meyer Bros. Drug Co., who presented this display to the College for the Museum. The display of plants grown at school by Mr. Kessler and Associate Professor E. E. Clark was an unexpected surprise to manyg this collection consists of a number of cactus plants and was displayed by Misses Corbin and Fitch. The old style shelf bottles .aroused the curiosity of many. They were effect- ively displayed by placing them on the shelves of the fixtures of an old drug store. These fixtures were donated to the Museum last year by Mr. Benincasa. The exhibition proved to be of far greater interest than anticipatedg the' stu- dents of all classes were allowed time to inspect the display and expressed great pleasure in looking over object after object and seeing part of what had gone on in Pharmacy in the past. The display was discussed and favorably commented upon by the medical professiong and a group of students of Wasliingtoii U. Medical School requested permission to View the exhibition in a body. The request was gladly granted and a class from the school visited the display and displayed a keen interest in the pharmaceutical side of medicine. It is hoped we will be honored by frequent visits of the classes of the medical school. fa Page EightyfSeven

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