considerable, as evidenced by the listing on page 130. However, of
these, only about a dozen constituted the really critical shortages.
Heading the list of these "capital articles" was Peruvian or Jesuits'
bark, the same cinchona from which quinine was later discovered. Tons
of bark were used during the Revolutionary War, and the price more
than quandrupled between June 1776 and September 1777.

The most prominent group of drugs on the list of capital articles
consisted of cathartics and purgatives. Jalap, ipecac, and rhubarb
were the botanical favorites, while bitter purging salts (Epsom salts)
and Glauber's purging salts were the chemical choices for purging.
Tartar emetic (antimony and potassium tartrate) was the choice for a
vomit, and cantharides (Spanish flies) was the most important
ingredient of blistering plasters. Gum opium was administered for its
narcotic effects, while gum camphor, nitre (saltpetre or potassium
nitrate), and mercury (pure metal as well as certain salts) were
employed for a variety of purposes. Lint, a form of absorbent material
made by scraping or picking apart old woven material, also often was
short in supply.

Equipment shortages included surgical instruments and mortar and
pestles for pulverizing the crude drugs. Glass vials for holding
compounded medicines were also a supply problem, especially after
essential drugs were again available.

Some of the shortages were eased, if not solved, by local
manufacture. Lint was produced in large quantities in the Colonies,
and glass vials were manufactured in numerous glasshouses. Even local
manufacture of the purging salts and nitre aided in eliminating
shortages of these essential items, and at the same time initiated the
first large-scale pharmaceutical manufacturing in America.

Numerous botanicals indigenous to the Colonies were widely employed in
medicine of the period, and certain ones such as snakeroot (seneka),
which was widely found growing in Virginia, would have been very
scarce had not an adequate supply been immediately at hand. However,
attempts to substitute other indigenous plants for scarce drugs like
Peruvian bark were largely unsuccessful. There is no indication that
hysop, wormwood, and mallows called for during the New York crisis
were ever found to be suitable replacements for any of the capital
articles. Wine apparently was more useful as a substitute for bark
than the bark of butternut recommended by the _Lititz Pha