PREFACE. 
Ir is told that Sir Walter Scott, having occasion to seek 
medical aid unexpectedly in a small country town, found a 
doctor there, one John Lundie, a grave, sagacious-looking 
man, attired in black, with a shovel hat, who said, “‘ My practice 
is vera sure: I depend entirely upon twa simples.” “ And 
what may they be ?” asked Sir Walter. “ My twa simples,” 
replied John, in a low confidential tone, “are just laudamy 
and calamy.” “Simples with a vengeance!” quoth Scott; 
“*And how about your patients, John?” “ Whiles they 
dies: whiles no.” answered he, “but it’s the wull o’ Provi- 
dence.” 
Little did the said doctor surmise that, comprehended 
within his two simples, lay many constituent principles owning 
distinct activities, and which have since then become analysed 
into separate medicaments. The laudamy (opium) has been 
found to comprise no less than twenty-one elements, all with 
divers physical, and chemical properties, (some indeed an- 
tagonistic) ; whilst the calamy is understood now-a-days to 
exercise a wide variety of effects, determinable by varying 
methods of its use: these “twa simples” thus making 
together an ample pharmacopeia of drugs. But those were 
times of comparatively rude physic, and of rough-shod 
medical treatment. 
Our assumption, to-day, is that (in lieu of drugs) an 
adequate sufficiency of component curative parts stands simi- 
larly embodied within most of our ordinary dishes and drinks. 
