CONFEDERATE RESOURCES.* BY C. H. TEBAULT, M.D., NEW ORLEANS, LA., Mr. President and Fellow-Comrades: In the pages following, I beg to contribute for the coming historian a number of interesting facts derived from various sources, in evidence of some of the many grave difficulties encountered by the South during the war between the States, and how undauntedly we met them. Almost immediately after the Confederate Government was organized at Montgomery it was confronted by strong facts and large figures as to required supplies by the different departments. Agents were sent at once to Europe, most of whom were in London, where they established a weekly newspaper, with local correspondents in nearly every Southern town from Virginia to Texas Instructions were given, that as there was only two sources of supply, capture and blockade running, importance was given to securing, first, arms and ammunition; second, clothing, including boots, shoes and hats; third, drugs and chemicals, such as were most pressingly needed, as quinine, chloroform, ether, opium, morphine, rhubarb, etc. These agents were instructed to see that all blockade runners or any transport ships, barks or brigantines, that were clearing for Southera ports for cargoes of cotton, were loaded with the above enumerated articles; the cargoes to be consigned to individuals, firms, or agents of the Government at any port for which they cleared. At the outset, the question of drugs and medicines was thus considered third in importance, and the druggists of the South had either to manufacture what they could from native barks and leaves, herbs and roots, or purchase at Southern ports such supplies as the blockade runners brought, not intended for the Government. In most cases, these cargoes were offered at auc tion; this was a custom at New Orleans, Galveston, Mobile, *Paper prepared for the Memphis meeting of the Association of Medical Officers of the Army and Navy of the Confederacy, May 28-30, inclusive, 1901. Charleston, Savanah, Pensacola and Wilmington. The gulf cities received large supplies from Cuba, while in Texas there was almost a continous train of contrabanders or smugglers bringing goods across the Rio Grande from Mexico, but not much of this was medicine. The wagon trains of the enemy, captured from time to time, furnished us some supplies of medicines and surgical appliances, but these were insufficient to meet the most distressing needs in the army; so it may be seen, that home manufacture and blockade running were the only sources of supply during nearly four years, for between six and seven millions of people. The interior towns suffered most, such as Jackson, Meridian, Columbus and Aberdeen, in Mississippi; Selma, Montgomery, Eufaula and Huntsville in Alabama; Albany, Columbus, Macon, Augusta, Athens, Rome and Atlanta in Georgia; Spartanberg, Greenville and Columbia in South Carolina; Fayetteville, Goldsboro, Raliegh, Statesville and Charlotte in North Carolina; Danville, Lynchburg, Petersburg and Richmond in Virginia. In nearly all of these towns one or more druggists manufactured from stock on hand of roots, herbs and barks, or from home supply of such medicinal plants, etc., as he could secure, tinctures and like preparations. The supply of whiskey was not so short as that of medicine;' the so-called "moonshiners" of the mountains of North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia, kept their stills, (often made of gum logs), running night and day, and found a ready sale for all they produced. So far as known, no tax was placed on whiskey. I have in my possession a copy of the following work: "Resources of the Southern Fields and Forests, Medical, Economical and Agricultural, being also a Medical Botany of the Southern States, with practical information on the useful properties of the trees, plants and shrubs," by Francis Peyre Porcher, M.D., formerly Surgoon in charge of city hospitals, Charleston, and Lecturer on Materia Medica and Therapeutics; Corresponding Member of tho Medical and Surgical and the Obstetric Societies, and the Lyceum of Natural History, of New York, and of the Academy of Natural Sciences, of Philadelphia." The first edition of this volume" (to use the language of Dr. 66 Porcher), was prepared during the late war by direction of the Surgeon-General of the Confederate States, that the Medical officers, as well the public, might be supplied with information, which, at the time, was greatly needed. I was released, temporarily, for this purpose, from service in the field and hospital. My connection with the last mentioned institution, as physician and surgeon, has extended almost uninterruptedly over a period of twelve years, so that my opportunities for experimental investigations in therapeutics and practical medicine, have been ample." The edition I now have is the "New Edition-Revised and Largely Augmented," published at Charleston, in 1869. This new edition comprises some 700 pages. I will proceed to quote from his "Preliminary": "It will, therefore, be observed how important it is for us to understand the flora, as well as the soil of a country, and, as one, at least, of our staple commodities, has suffered, we must seek to diversify our industries, and by a more intelligent observation, we may discover new products adapted to our wants and capable of being produced here. It will be observed that most of our useful plants are not indigenous, many now in the woods may, by careful cultivation, become greatly improved in quality and ten-fold more productive, as has already been done with our wild grapes, apples, cauliflowers, strawbe.ries, etc. Central botanical gardens should be established in place of parks, which may be made useful to the iudustry of man, and are as important to a State as geological surveys. I have introduced a notice of upwards of five hundred substance, possessing every variety of useful quality. Some will be rejected as useless; others will be found, on closer examination, to be still more valuable. The most precious of all textile fibres, grains, silks, fruits, oils, gums, caoutchouc, resins, dyes, fecula, albumen, sugar, starch, vegetable acids and alkalies, liquors, spirits, burning fluid, material for making paper and cordage, grasses and forage plants, barks, medicines, wood for tanning, and the productions of chemical agencies, for timber, ship-building, engraving, furniture, implements and untensils of every description, all abound in the greatest munificence, and need but the arm of the authorities, or the energy and enterprise of the private citizen to be made sources of utility, profit or beauty." I have but imperfectly hinted at the valuable labor performed by Surgeon Porcher, under his appointment as stated, and later on hope to make future contributions from this immense storehouse, in proof of the inexhaustable and but little dreamed of variety of our as yet slumbering, though teeming, Southern resources. I append a list of substitutes that were used by druggists and physicians during the war, in large quantities, in most instances, being the only medicines of the kind to be had. Imported articles in italics, substitute following each in Roman type : Columbo Quassia.-Yellow root. Spanish Flies.-Potato bugs, powdered leaves of butter-nuts. Jalap.-Wild jalap, wild potato vine, fever root. Aloes.-Wild jalap, mulberry bark, dock, wild potato vine, American Columbo. Digitalis.-Blood root, wild cherry, pipsisewa, bugle weed, jasamine. Quinine and Peruvian Bark.-Tulip tree bark, dog wood, cotton seed tea, chestnut root and bark, chinquapin root and bark, thoroughwort, Spanish oak bark, knob grass, willow bark. Conium.-American hemlock. Opium.-Motherwort, American hemlock. Sarsaparilla.-Wild sarsaparilla, soapwort, yellow parilla, China briar, queen's delight. Chamomile.-Dogwood. Flaxseed.-Watermelon seed. Gum Arabic.-Low mallows, apple, pear and quince gum, balm, watermelon seed. Ergot.-Cottonroot. Guaiacum.-Boxwood, poke, prickly ash. Ipecac. -Wild jalap, Carolina hipps. Kino and Catechu.-Cranesbill. Senna.-Wild senna. Colocynth.-Alum-root. Tannin.-Smooth sumac. Olive oil.-Peanut oil, beechnut oil, cottonseed oil. Laudanum.-Hops, motherwort. Acrcia.-Slippery elm bark, sassafras pith. Bougies.-Slippery elm bark. Corks. Black gum roots, tupelo wood, corn cobs. Pink root.-Cardinal flower. Assafoetida.-Wild chamomile. Calomel. Dandelion, pleurisy root, butterfly weed. Wood anemone was employed as a vesicatory in removing corns from the feet. Powdered may-apple, mixed with resin, was used as a caustic in treating horses, the farriers using it for escharotic purposes. On the farms, the juice of the pulp of the maypop seeds was made into a summer drink, in place of lemonade. Powdered blood-root snuffed up the nese made a powerful sternutatory, and was applied as an escharotic to fungous flesh. Pond-lily poultice was extensively applied to ulcers, button snake root, or globe flower, was used largely as an expectorant and diuretic. Toothache bark (aralia spinosa) was used to allay pain caused by carious teeth, and in South Carolina the negroes relied on it almost exclusively for rattle-snake bite. Side-saddle or flycatcher was used in the various forms of dyspepsia. Ink was made from the rind of the pomegranate fruit and poke berries. During convalescence, or as an astringent tonic, dogwood supplied the need. Thism, with blackberry and gentian and pipsissewa, as tonics and diuretics, and sweet gum and sassafras for mucilaginous and aromatic properties, and with jalap as a cathartic, supplied the surgeon in camp with easily procured medicinal plants, which proved sufficient in times of need. Palmetto leaves, split into shreds with fork and hanckle, boiled and dried in the sun, for a few days, made a light, clean, healthy and durable mattress. Palmetto pillows were light and comfortable, and used by our soldiers on the coast. The negroes were employed making palmetto hats for the army. A bed made from the downy swamp plant, which was called "cat's tail," took a premium at an agricultural fair in South Carolina. Phytolacca decandra, or poke root plant, was largely used in diseases affecting the scalp, and in ulcers, eruptions, itch and hemorrhoids. Knot grass was considered a powerful astringent in diarrhoea, and in uterine hemorrhage. Mountain laurel was employed with claimed success in rheumatism, gout, and glandular enlargements. Black alder was used as a wash in cutane. ous troubles. Pinckneya pubens, Georgia bark was said to be |