260 ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY OF 



of the practice of medicine, of chemistry, and materia medica, caused 

 them, under the then existing circumstances, to precede that of bo- 

 tany. Hence, indeed, long after the establishment of schools for 

 the tuition and preparation of candidates for medical license, it con- 

 tinued to be regarded as a mere adjunct of the latter class, materia 

 medica. As such it was confined, in this country at least, to the 

 notice of the plants of the pharmacopoeia ; and as regarded his pro- 

 gress in a science now so complex, the student of medicine, thus tu- 

 tored, resembled the preacher who could read, but only in his own 

 book. He might have learned to know the drowsy poj^y of the 

 garden, perhaps even to trace its relation with the gaudier crimson 

 tenants of the corn-field — challenge the drastic hellebore, the fox- 

 glove, nightshade, and conium, of his native land ; but was rarely 

 capable of extending his lore to the more distant affinities which 

 characterize the vegetation of a different clime ; and therefore ill- 

 calculated to avail himself of their valuable, or to avoid their bane- 

 ful, properties : still less to add, by observation and experiment, to 

 the most useful department of that science, to a knowledge of which 

 he would, probably, pretend. 



Among the several causes which have led to a more extended ap- 

 plication of botany to the purposes of medicine, the establishment of 

 the Medico-Botanical Society may certainly lay considerable claim to 

 public notice. During its career, the attention of a large portion of 

 the junior members and aspirants of the profession, has been directed 

 by it to the importance of a subject which, but for their attendance 

 upon its meetings, would, probably, have remained a matter of in- 

 difference to them. I say of indifference — because the extensive 

 facilities afforded to the mere mechanical practitioner, and of such 

 there are, unfortunately, still too many, by the vast commercial ma- 

 chinery of this ever active and enterprising nation, has rendered 

 him, in a great measure, independent of his own resources. He 

 gives an order to his druggist, depending upon the latter for the 

 correctness of its execution ; and as to anything farther, why — as 

 an unworthy disciple of Esculapius not long since replied to a friend 

 of mine, who ventured to hint that too violent medicine had been 

 administered to an infant — " There is a book called the pharmaco- 

 poeia, in which the art of compounding medicines for every disorder. 



