408 GENERAL REMARKS, 
present mercantile usage, can be explained in a simple way. Though 
some knowledge of drugs and their use has been universal in China, a 
good number of the corresponding medicinal plants were never known 
to any but a few collectors of plants. They kept their knowledge as a 
secret by which they gained their profits. As it might happen that the few 
expert collectors vanished in times of war or through other calamities, 
their secret perished with them. Other persons tried afterwards, 
with more or less success, to repair the loss. If the effects of their 
drugs were found similar to those lost, the differences (appearance 
and former description) would be overlooked. It might also happen 
that the supply became exhausted, through extermination of the 
plant, at one particular locality or in general. The nearest substitute 
had then to take its place. Moreover, attempts were often made 
to introduce a cheaper drug from the neighbourhood for an expensive 
one from a distance, and in many cases with success. It would 
happen, too, that a drug found to be of a similar but better effect 
would displace another long known, and probably receive the 
recognized old name. Dishonesty on the part of those concerned in 
the trade had, of course, a considerable share in the causes of the 
present confusion. Inadequate botanical knowledge made exposure 
almost impossible. New names were also started, partly by misprints 
_and insufficient knowledge of the written characters among practi- 
tioners, partly by the differences of pronunciation in different parts — 
of China. 
CHINESE CLASSIFICATION, 
Though the Chinese have written many volumes on plants, during 4 
time of more than two thousand years, and have accumulated between 
three and four thousand names of plants (including synonyms), 
they have never made an attempt toward a scientific treatment of 
botany. Their descriptions are vague and often contradictory, com- 
monly useless except the plant be already known. All attempts at 
classification are on the basis of usage, not founded on a 
properties. 
The various names given in the Imperial Encyclopedia at the 
head of each family, sometimes in great number, and called synonyms 
in my notes for brevity’s sake, are in many cases names given t0 
distinct plants by other Chinese authors, sometimes even to plants 
of different orders, but commonly to other species of the same genus; 
to other genera of the same order, or to plants of the same usage: — be 
