Dr. Grateloup on the utility of Botany in Medicine. 33 



\i tin present time tins doctrine, fax freak being fallacious, is 

 considered by men of the greatest merit, as positive and very 

 advantageous. The labours of the chemist furnish daily proofs 

 of this truth, and, indeed, what other science is more proper to 

 investigate the medical, alimentary, and poisonous properties of 

 plants than chemistry, as it succeeds in revealing their essenti- 

 ally active principles J 



It must be conceded that if the chemists of past centuries 

 had a high opinion of the analyses of medicines which they made, 

 in order to discover their medical properties, we must be per- 

 mitted to entertain great confidence in those which are furnished 

 us l.v the learned chemists of the day, and amongst them by 

 Vauqaelin, Chevreuil, Pelletier, Braconnot, Boullai, Planche, 

 Parmentier, Pruut, Thompson, Berzelius, &c. Indeed these 

 Analyses give us an exact knowledge of the principles which 

 enter into the composition of vegetable products ; they make us 

 appreciate with precision, the respective qualities of each of 

 these principles, whether they are found solitary, or in a state 

 of conjunction with either fixed (as often happens) or volatile 

 prineip] 



Bui this is not the place to expatiate on the salutary influence 

 which chemists assume in Materia Medica. It is just, however, 

 to observe, that if the physician ought to be versed in the study 

 of the Baton] sci.-m-es, ;iinl of botany in particular, he ought 

 not t.< be i -tram;, r to chemistry. lie will, undoubtedly, with 



such information, be enabled to ohmrray more judiciously, the 



Its of the action of medicinal substances, introduced into a 

 I st.it,- of ili«- constitution, and will be more capable of 

 axing the medica] property i of those substances. 



Let us SOU return to tlie advantages arising from a knowledge 



of the Ian ot analogy, between the virtues of plants and their 



i form. 



Drapeaaud ami !)•■ CandoUe affirm, that it is on this law 



i the labours of the physician, the physiologist, and the 



■ rimental chemist, who endeavours to substitute indigenous 



i. ii <ln Hi- \otn om - 



l) 



