30 Dr. Gratehup on the utility of Botany in Medicine. 



particularly in Materia Medica and Therapeutics that Botany 

 renders the greatest services. It enables the physician to make 

 the best choice of those plants which are endowed with the most 

 active properties ; it has the invaluable advantage of supplying, 

 instead of exotic medicines of which he is often deprived, spon- 

 taneous productions that he finds at every step. 



Independent of these advantages, the botanical physician will 

 avoid the dangerous errors to which ignorance of falsified or 

 adulterated drugs must necessarily expose him. He will avoid 

 the fearful blunders made by those who do not know how to 

 distinguish the genera and species of plants, who are daily con- 

 founding poisonous with harmless plants, salutary and medicinal 

 plants with those which are useless, or the properties of which 

 are unknown. 



It is well known how often the Hemlock (Conium macu- 

 latum) has been confused with the common Fool's Parsley 

 (jEthusa Cynapium), sometimes with the recumbent Chervil, 

 sometimes with wild Chervil (CHjERC-fhyllum sylvestre), 

 and sometimes with the Water Hemlock (Phellandrium 

 aquaticum), &c. &c. 



Professor Gouan, of Montpellier, informs us, in his Lectures 

 on Botany, that he had seen an extract prepared from the wild 

 Chervil instead of the Hemlock ; and Mr. Thou, a physician 

 and learned botanist, told me, that he had seen the same error 

 made witli the Scandix Anthriscus. What a mistake! and 

 yet there are men in the profession who will condemn a know- 

 ledge of Botany. 



We can all recollect that the Hellebore of Hippocrates, was 

 for a long time confounded with other plants of different genera. 

 Mr. Lemonier informs us, that at Paris the stinking Hellebore 

 (Hklleborus foztidus) was employed in its stead. According 

 to Vogel and Hoffmam, the Germans used A no N is vernalis and 

 Arnica montana. Haller and Albert discovered that it was 

 confounded with the root of Polygonatum. Loesche dis- 

 claimed against the use of the green Hellebore (HblL&BORUS 

 viridis); Schulzius against that of the Aconite, the root of 



