* • 



INTRODUCTION. HI 



contributed to impart Medical and Botanical 

 knowledge, through the professional class. 



14. This purpose has been aided by nume- 

 rous publications of learned Physicians and 

 Botanists, Medical Works, Pamphlets and 

 Journals, Pharmacopeias, Dispensatories, In- 

 augural Theses, &c. 



±5. Notwithstanding all these means, it is a 

 positive and deplorable fact, that but few medi- 

 cal practitioners, apply themselves to the Study 

 of Botany, and therefore are deprived of the 

 aid of comparative Medical Botany. 



16. It is not less certain, but still more de- 

 plorable that beyond the immediate sphere of 

 medical knowledge, the majority of the people 

 are yet in prey to medical credulity, supersti- 

 tion and delusions, in which they are confirraed 

 by the repeated failures of Theorists, aud the 

 occasional success of Empirical Rivals. 



17. Even in large cities and in the centre of 

 medical light. Empirics are thriving, because 

 they avail theniselves of the resources aflbrded 

 by active plants, often neglected or unknown to 

 the regular practitioners. 



18. It is not perhaps so w ell known that there 

 are in this Age and in the United States, Ame- 

 rican Marabouts who like the Marabouts of 

 the wilds of Africa, attempt in some remote 

 places, to cure diseases by charms, prayers, 

 blowing, spitting, &c. 



19. It is therefore needful to spread still 

 further correct medical knowledge; and the 

 state of medical science is such in the United 

 States, as to require a greater diffusion of the 



