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to investigate carefully, and ascertain accurately the value of the 

 many, whose properties have been hitherto resting on a traditional, 

 if not entirely fabulous species of evidence. The importance of 

 such an investigation, together with a more universal study of botany 

 by medical men, will be apparent from two or three considerations. 



And first, there are not only several diseases that are incurable, 

 in all their stages, by any known remedies, but we have also not un- 

 frequently certain stages and conditions of the system arising during 

 the progress of diseases acknowledged to be curable, presenting in- 

 dications which are very imperfectly met by the remedies in common 

 use, or any of their combinations. Hence, if there were no other 

 considerations, this alone would render it the imperious duty of every 

 physician to search diligently for new and more efficient agents for 

 combating what are now too justly styled the opprobria of our pro- 

 fession. 



Second, there is an opinion extensively entertained by the mass 

 of mankind, that there exist in the vegetable kingdom of every 

 country appropriate and effectual remedies for the diseases of that 

 country. And it is this opinion, sedulously fostered by interested 

 parties, that constitutes the foundation on which rests the success of 

 the whole vast tribe of Thompsonian, Botanical, Indian, and other 

 vegetable doctors. It bears the relation to the community of a 

 powerful and constantly operating predisposing cause, rendering it 

 extremely susceptible to the various arts and influences of these 

 species of quackery. If we unite with this, the fact that a very 

 large proportion of regularly educated physicians are almost wholly 

 ignorant of the plants, whether medicinal or non-medicinal, which 

 exist in their own immediate localities, we shall find no difficulty in 

 perceiving how shrewd and designing men, ready and eager to take 

 advantage of this ignorance, and claiming for themselves great and 

 intuitive knowledge on the subject, succeed in imposing themselves on 

 the credulity of their fellow men. They are left, so far as the popu- 

 lar belief is concerned, in almost undisputed possession of the whole 

 field of vegetable remedies, for it is still a prevailing idea among 

 the mass of the community, that there is a wide difference between 

 " Apothecary Media 'it <■" and our native medicinal plants. The one, 

 they regard as almost uniformly poisonous — the other, as harmless 

 and healthful. This absurd idea is not only prevalent, and fostered 

 by the species of pretenders to whom we have already alluded, but 

 it is still more powerfully sustained and propagated by those false 

 and alluring advertisements, that occupy so conspicuous a place in 



