Editorial department.
GALANGAL.—As an addition to Mr. Hanbury's interesting historical notes on galangal published in the present number, we take occasion to state that this root is little known in American pharmacy, and perhaps never employed here in the regular practice of physicians. It is, however, frequently sold in various parts of the country by pedlers and travelling "medicine men," either as a cure-all, or by those, perhaps, less imbued with the spirit of charlatanry, under the less pretentious claim of a "sure cure" for dyspepsia, diarrhoea, headache or tooth-ache. During the last five or six years, we have repeatedly received samples from various parts of the country where it had been sold under the names of China, Indian and East India root, and probably under other names. Under the latter name it was lately offered in the streets in close proximity to several of our best Philadelphia wholesale drug houses, and sold at the rate of about 25 cents per oz., a moderate charge as compared with that exacted in some western localities, where 50 cents per oz. has been paid for it. This is at the rate of $8 per pound, but the percentage of profit is sufficient to insure, with a tolerably extensive sale, a handsome income, and we question whether the celebrated cundurango, at $100 per pound, affords the same percentage on the net cost.
