Dispensatory of the United States. 151 



Art, XVI. — JYotice of the Dtspensatory of the United States of 

 America ; by George B. Wood, M. D., Prof, of Materia Medica 

 and Pharmacy in the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, &c. &c, 

 and Franklin Bache, M.D., Prof, of Chemistry in the Philad. 

 Coll. of Pharmacy, &c.&c. Philadelphia: Grigg& Elliot. 1S33. 

 . 8vo. pp. 1073. 



Among the benefits, as well as the evidences, of a liberal attention 

 to the arts and sciences in any nation, is the improvement of its ma- 

 teria medica. So urgent is the necessity of healing applications in 

 the case of wounds, and of disordered functions of the system, that 

 no people, however low in the scale of civilization, are to be found 

 entirely destitute of the means of aiding nature in her efforts at res- 

 toration. The principal resort of savage tribes is the virtues of plants, 

 whose peculiar qualities accident or untutored ingenuity has taught 

 them to investigate. The amount of knowledge thus acquired by 

 the inhabitants of our forests is a matter of proverbial remark. The 

 popular impression, that Providence has provided an appropriate rem- 

 edy fcjr every disease, and that it depends only on the skill and indus- 

 try of man to find it out, is probably cherished among the rude as 

 well as the more refined portions of mankind j and that the distinc- 

 tion which those have gained who have been most successful in the 

 acquisition of this knowledge, has served as a powerful stimulus to 

 greater attainments in the medical virtues of substances derived from 

 either of the three kingdoms of nature, there can be little doubt. 

 To what extent this knowledge has been benefited by the researches 

 of pure science, can be demonstrated only by a reference to the his- 

 tory of alchemy, and to the surprising discoveries which have reward- 

 ed the labors of those who have devoted themselves to an experi- 

 mental acquaintance with the chemical laws of matter. Medicine, 

 it is well known, is greatly indebted to the extravagant search after 

 the universal solvent, the powder of projection and the elixir of life. 

 And when, in the ardor of these vain dreams, any new compound 

 was discovered, which upon trial was found to possess active powers 

 upon the organs of digestion, the discoverer often broke forth, into 

 extravagant manifestations of joy. No one can read the rhapsodies 

 of Basil Valentine, in his "Triumphant Chariot of Antimony," or, 

 as it was styled in the original German, "Triumph Wagen Anti- 

 monii," nor the eloquent raptures of Glauber, in Packe's folio ac- 



