220 BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 



ou the medical plants of North America, was elaborating the list 

 and nomenclature of the Materia Medica of the first edition of 

 the United States Pharmacopoeia, was a member of a number of 

 scientific and literary societies to which he made frequent and 

 elaborate contributions, was in correspondence with nearly all the 

 leading botanists of Europe and America, and withal often 

 turned his attention to poetry and Latin composition. He also 

 brought out an edition of Sir J. E. Smith's Introduction to Bo- 

 tany. He was one of the very first, if not the first, in this coun- 

 try'to make a scientific attempt toward a medical botany. The 

 only works on that subject previous to his time appear to be 

 Benjamin Franklin's edition of an English work by Dr. Short, 

 with preface, notes and appendix by John Bartram, issued in 

 1751, and an " American Materia Medica," wholly in Latin, pub- 

 lished in Europe in 1787 by Dr. Schoeff. Dr. Bigelow's "American 

 Medical Botany" was published in three volumes,from 1817 to 1820. 

 Each volume contained an extensive account of twenty species, 

 each illustrated by a colored plate. The properties of many of 

 these species had "received chemical manipulation at his hands, 

 and had been used in his private practice. His work upon the 

 Materia Medica of the United States Pharmacopoeia, which ap- 

 peared in 1820, was characterized by a most laudable departure 

 from the old systems of cumbrous nomenclature. In all possi- 

 ble cases he employed a single name for each drug in place of the 

 double or triple names previously in use, a plan which is still 

 followed in our National Pharmacopoeia He followed up this 

 labor by publishing his practical treatise, long familiar to the 

 profession under the name of " Bigelow's Sequel," a succinct, 

 judicious and perspicuous commentary on the characters, quali- 

 ties and uses of the remedies adopted by the national medical 

 representatives. 



Dr. Bigelow's leading characteristic was the versatility of his 

 genius. He was not only a botanist, but one of the most skilled 

 physicians of his time, and adept in mechanics and machinery, and 

 a most polished classical scholar. His works upon medical topics 

 are among the most important ever written. As in botany, so in 

 medicine, he was a pioneer, but in the latter case a pioneer to in- 

 augurate a most radical reform in the practices^ of his time. All 

 his medical writings bear strong evidence of his lack of faith in 

 drugs and heroio remedies, and in the reliance he placed upon 

 the recuperative processes of nature. Indeed, his work upon 

 "Self-limited Diseases" is an avowed attack upon the old 

 methods. 



