BOTANICON SINICUM. 129 
value, and who rely upon the assurance with which the author’s 
information is presented. Dr. P. Smith’s book indeed contains 
notices of a great number of Chinese drugs: Chinese and scientific 
names are always given and identified without any hesitation. 
One might believe that Chinese Pharmacology is as well known 
to Europeans as our own drugs are to us, and that Dr. P. Smith 
has left nothing to be done in this department. But if any one 
attempts to examine the matter thoroughly, he will soon be aware 
of the arbitrary character of his identifications and of the in- 
sufficiency of the knowledge we really possess with regard to 
Chinese drugs and economic plants. Thus, P. Smith’s scientific 
denominations of Chinese plants, being drawn without any critical 
discernment from trustworthy and untrustworthy sources, have 
little value and render his book unreliable for any scientific pur- 
pose. It cannot however be denied that there are in it many in- 
teresting accounts, translated from Chinese works, relating to the 
medical virtues ascribed by the Chinese to their drugs. 
Three years after P. Smith’s book on Chinese Materia medica 
was published, a compilation of the same character appeared in 
French, with the title: La Matidre médicale chez les Chinois, par 
le Dr. J. L. Soubeiran et M. Dabry de Thiersant, Consul de France 
en Chine, 1874, Although professing to be an original work, it 
is nothing but a compilation from P. Smith and Debeaux, made 
Without criticism and without the Chinese characters of the native 
names. The best portion of the book is the able preface by Prof. 
Gubler,” 
Such are the sources from which in Anglo-Chinese Dictionaries 
of later date, and also in the Reports on Trade at the Chinese 
47 In a letter addressed to me by my late friend Dan. Hanbury, in Dec. 1873, I find 
the following passage : ; : 2 
“I recently forwarded to you Soubeiran and Dabry’s work on Chin. Materia medica 
“—not on account of its scientific value, which is small indeed, but because it is proper 
“that you should have at hand all such books, good or bad, What can we say of such 
“statements as that the Dragon’s Blood of the Chinese is derived from Pterocarpus 
“Draco, a tree only known to grow in Tropical America? Or that the Valeriana 
“celtica of the Styrian Alps grows in Szechuen and Shensi ? or that Santalum Frey- 
“cinetianum, a native of the Sandwich Islands, is found in Cochinchina ? (p. 278, 160, 
“157), and many, many similar assertions for which no ‘ piéces justificatives’ are 
“‘offered. It is impossible to speak with commendation of this work, It is largely 
“copied from P. Smith, whose errors it adopts and repeats. 2 
