Inaugural Address. 51 
in the agua omnium florum, there was an oracular latent wit- 
ticism which fails not to provoke a smile; for, says Baitey, 
“aqua omnium florum” means (among chemists) the distilled 
water of cows’ dung, when cows go to grass. But of this 
enough : one sample of such precious balms may well suffice. 
An imperfect knowledge of the essential properties of me- 
dicines, especially of the vegetable materia medica, has 
always led, as still it does, and as long as it exists must ever 
lead to complicate our prescriptions, to cripple our resources, 
and to confuse our principles of practice. Formerly this was 
much more prevalent than it can be now; but, even in the 
present age, I doubt not that great and unneeded complexity 
remains, though as yet it may be hidden from our eyes. Each 
succeeding year long has tended to simplify and curtail our 
catalogues of drugs; and each succeeding year, it may be 
easily foretold, will tend to simplify and curtail them more. 
1 could point out many instances, both ancient and modern, in 
which agents, similar in effect, if not identical in composition, 
r many times under different denominations, their names 
being the points in which they differ most. How many mere 
varieties of carbonate and phosphate of lime do we even now 
admit, merely because they are derived from different 
sources, and how much more numerous were they in the age 
before the last, when all drugs were considered essentially 
distinct whenever the substances were distinct from which 
they were obtained. I have chosen this purely chemical 
illustration because chemistry has lately thrown so much light 
on medicine, and promises to shed much more, and its re- 
searches are far more complete in the constitution of inor- 
ganic than of organic nature. Indeed, we are at present 
unable to determine, in the vegetable department, how far 
many of our most costly drugs may be entirely dispensed 
with, as many have already been. How many mere va- 
rieties of expensive astringents, bitters, aromatics, &c. do we 
not now employ, when more than a reasonable doubt may be 
entertained as to whether, as in the instance referred to, their 
truly efficient principles may not be extracted from cheaper 
materials and more abundant sources: of this we have already 
proved the practicability in several important cases. Thus, 
the scartnowt i alkali, our sub-carbonate of potash, was at one 
time possessed of numerous names, and appeared and re- 
appeared over and over again in the Dispensatory; and yet, 
at each repetition, seems to have been considered a new and 
independent drug. ‘Thus, we find it introduced under the 
me and titles of Sal Absinthii, or salt of wormwood, Centaurii 
ris, Cichorii, Euphrasiw, Fabarum, Fumariew, Geniste, 
