869 



on Medical Botany, from which I have quoted largely ; Evelyn's 

 Sylva, folio ; the able treatise on the Botanical History and Medical 

 uses of British Plants, published in the early volumes of the London 

 Medical and Physical Journal, and also to other articles in that 

 work ; Thomson's Abridgment, in quarto, of the Transactions of 

 the Royal Society of London ; Linnseus's Species Plantarum, 4 vols. 

 octavo ; De Candolle, Loudon, Willdenow, Sprengell, Woodville, 

 Pennant, Lightfoot, Cullen, Rutherford, Ray, Murray, Hill, Dun- 

 can, Lindelstolphe, Dioscorides, Boerhaave, Duncan, Strack, Haller, 

 Curtis, Gmelin, Wepfer, Hoffmann, Stokes, Bergius, Stork, and many 

 other standard and scientific medical writers, which time will not per- 

 mit me to enumerate. On this subject, I have also endeavoured to 

 procure information from sources of even doubtful authority. From 

 what may be considered by some as empirical authority. I have 

 consulted the works of Henry, who has written a large volume upon 

 Medical Botany, with numerous plates. Thomson's Manual, Matt- 

 son's Practice, with coloured plates, Stewart's Healing Art, and a 

 host of herbals and family practices, which have been hawked about 

 the country by pedlers and petty mapmen. I, too, have listened to 

 the marvellous stories of illiterate old women and Indian doctors, 

 concerning the virtues of plants, and have endeavoured to draw 

 useful information concerning the medical virtues of our indigenous 

 plants. From these results, some facts may be collected which will 

 enable us to prepare an extended and useful vegetable Materia 

 Medica of the United States. 



Catalogue of the Indigenous Medicinal Plants growing in Massa- 

 chusetts, as far as I can ascertain them ; arranged according to the 

 Natural System of Lindley, and to the Sexual Systems of Linnaeus. 



It is presumed that every physician possesses some elementary 

 treatise on botany, which will describe the botanical history of the 

 plant of which I treat. I shall not, therefore, give the botanical 

 description of them, any farther than to refer to the orders, classes, 

 &c., as this would enlarge my paper to the size of a volume. 



