Because their use was so extensive in Europe and because many brought a good price, any discussion of drugs in seventeenth-century Virginia should take note of the efforts in the colony to find locally the raw materials for the drugs both for use in Virginia and for export. The London Company actively supported a program to develop the drug resources of the New World, and the hope of finding them had originally been one of the incentives for the colonization of Virginia. Even as early as the sixteenth century, authors and promoters in England of the American venture had held up the promise of a profitable trade in drugs--sassafras, for example--as a stimulus for exploration and colonization. Sassafras had market value as it was widely used in cases of dysentery, skin diseases, and as a stimulant and astringent; French warships searching for loot off the shores of the New World had often made it the cargo when richer prizes were not to be had. Like gold, sassafras diverted labor during the crucial early period at Jamestown from the tasks of building and provisioning. Sailors and settlers, both, took time off to load the ships with the drug which would bring a good price in England. The belief that the exporting of drugs would prove profitable for the colony in Virginia and for the Company may explain why two apothecaries accompanied the second group of immigrants who arrived in 1608. Someone had to search out and identify possible drugs, and a layman could not be expected to perform a task requiring such specialized knowledge. The apothecaries could further serve the new settlement by helping to supply its medicinal needs. Before the drug trade in Virginia could be developed, and at the same time adapted to the over-all needs of the colony, attention had to be given to the use of drugs to meet the immediate needs of the settlers. Dr. Bohun, who had brought medical supplies in 1610 and soon found them exhausted, turned resourcefully to an investigation of indigenous minerals and plants. He investigated earths, gums, plants, and fruits. A white clay proved useful in treating the fevers (the clay of the Indians used for "sicknesse and paine of the belly"?); the fruits of a tree similar to the "mirtle" helped the doctor to face the epidemics of dysentery. The colonists also needed a wine which could be produced cheaply and locally. Many of them, accustomed to beer and wine regularly, complained of having to rely upon water as a liquid refresher. According to one of their number, more died in Virginia of the "disease of their minds than of their body ... and by not knowing they shall drink water here." One enterprising alchemist and chemist offered to sell the London Company a solution for this problem: the formula of an artificial wine to be made from Virginia vegetables.