REPORT ON NATIONAL MUSEUM. 191 



In determining upon a classification for this department of the Mu- 

 seum it was necessary to consider the subject from various points of 

 view. 1. The historical, as relating to the origin and progress — the 

 evolution of medical and surgical science and art. 2. The ethnographical, 

 regarding the medicines and methods peculiar to different races and 

 nations. 3. The therapeutical, which considers drugs in relation to 

 their effects on the animal economy. 4. The physical, having regard 

 to the sources, physical characters, and natural relations of the speci- 

 mens. 



The first method is obviously not adapted for a general classification 

 of a large collection, but should always be kept in view and may be em- 

 phasized, particularly in the development of the section of surgical in- 

 struments and appliances. The second may be carried out in part, as 

 in separate exhibits of Chinese and Corean medicines and the medicines 

 of the North American Indians. The third, though perhaps the most 

 instructive method to the student, presents insurmountable difficulties 

 in the way of accomplishment. The physiological action of a drug may 

 so vary with the dose as to make its assignment to a class purely arbi- 

 trary, and the very classification would give a wrong impression as to 

 its properties. Moreover, the investigation of many drugs has been so 

 limited as to leave their therapeutical qualities in great doubt, so while 

 the medical properties, as far as known, should be briefly stated on the 

 label for each specimen, yet, they cannot properly be used as a basis of 

 classification. 



There remain, then, only the physical relations of drugs to be con- 

 sidered, and of these the natural sources from which derived furnish the 

 most readily available, and the most comprehensive ground for a classi- 

 fication. 



In view of these considerations the following has been adopted : 



Classification and Arrangement of the Materia Medica Collection. 



I. Organic materia medica: (1) Animal products; (2) vegetable prod- 

 ucts ; (3) products of fermentation and distillation. 



II. Inorganic materia medica. 



1. The animal products are arranged according to the zoological posi- 

 tion of the animal from which the drug is derived, following the usual 

 classification, and beginning with the class Mammalia, order Carnivora. 



2. Vegetable products are classified to the botanical affinities of the 

 plant furnishing the drug, and the authority followed is that of Bentham 

 and Hooker's " Genera Plantarum " for the Phaenogamous plants, and 

 Luerssen's "Medicinisch Pharmaceutische Botanik" for the Cry ptogams. 



3. Products of fermentation and distillation include the products of 

 the acetous and vinous fermentations, and the derivatives, chloroform, 

 ether, &c, as well as distillates, such as carbolic acid, pyroligneous acid, 

 &c. This division is not subdivided. 



