344 



adulteration of medicines, and even Congress has been petitioned to 

 enact some special laws to break up the further importation of adulte- 

 rated and spurious drugs.* And every physician is aware, especially 

 if he has practised in country towns, of the inferior or worthless 

 quality of very many of the imported vegetable remedies and extracts 

 kept in the shops. So much so is this the case, that doubtless the 

 greater part of the differences of opinion which have been promulgated 

 concerning the remedial value and action of particular medicines is 

 attributable to this cause. This will ever remain the case in regard 

 to foreign drugs of vegetable origin, owing simply to the length of 

 time which often elapses between the collection of the article and 

 its finally reaching the practitioner for use. For it is by no means 

 rare that these remedies lie, simply enclosed in papers, three, four, 

 and five years, passing from other countries to our own, through 

 wholesale and retail shops, before they reach the patient; and hence, 

 what else but uncertainty and variableness could be expected from 

 their use? But few things are more essential, both to the success 

 and reputation of the physician, and the welfare of his patients, than 

 the possession of fresh and unadulterated medicines. If, then, we 

 can succeed in showing that our indigenous Materia Medica places 

 within the reach of every practitioner, not only vegetable alteratives, 

 diaphoretics, diuretics, expectorants, demulcents, tonics, anodynes, 

 sedatives, and astringents, but even emetics and cathartics, fully 

 equal in efficiency and value to those of any other country, with the 

 additional advantage that they may always be obtained fresh, pure, 

 and reliable, we hope that no one will fail to appreciate the import- 

 ance of the task we have undertaken. 



Since the appointment of your committee, the profession have 

 been favoured with a very complete catalogue of the medicinal plants 

 of New York, by Prof. C. A. Lee. Dr. S. W. Williams and Dr. F. 

 P. Porcher, the able members of the committee from Massachusetts 

 and South Carolina, have also placed in my hands manuscript re- 

 ports containing very full lists of the medical plants of those states, 

 arranged according; to their natural orders. The authors have be- 

 stowed on them much time and labour; and hence we beg leave to 

 present them to the Association entire as a legitimate part of our 

 report. On carefully examining these several catalogues, together 

 with other books and papers relating to the subject, we find the 



* Since this was written a bill lias passed both Houses of Congress, and received the 

 sanction of the executive, regulating the importation of drugs. See p. 330. 



