PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
fessed design of which is not only to enable the reader to dis- 
tinguish with precision all those plants which are directed for 
medicinal use by the Colleges of London and Edinburgh, but 
to furnish him at the same time with a circumstantial detail of 
their respective virtues, and of the diseases in which they have 
been most successfully employed by different writers. 
A distinctive and characteristic knowledge of natural objects 
should certainly precede the consideration of their different 
roperties and qualities; and with respect to plants, this know- 
eee is seldom to be adequately attained by a mere verbal 
description : accurate delineations therefore become necessary, 
and this department is committed to Mr. Sowerby, an artist of 
established reputation, whose talents are not less conspicuous in 
the correctness than in the beauty of his designs. 
Tt is justly a matter of surprize, that notwithstanding the 
universal adoption of the Linnzan system of Botany, and the 
great advances made in natural science, the works of Blackwell 
and Sheldrake should still be the only books in this country in 
which copper-plate figures of the medicinal plants are professedFy 
given; while splendid foreign publications of them, by Regnault, 
Zorn, and Plenk, have appeared in the space of a very few years, 
These works however are far from superceding that now offered 
to the public; for without resorting to the inviduous task of 
pointing out their errors and imperfections, the author has the 
satisfaction of having exhibited Icons of several rare and valuable 
plants, which have never been completely figured in any preceding 
work whatever: and by subjoining some account of the botanical 
and medical history of each species, curiosity is more fully grati- 
fied, and a double interest is excited in the mind of the student. 
Duplex est dos libelli. 
