l8 GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 



organs of the plant used, their gross and minute structure 

 in the whole and powdered condition, and the chemistry 

 of the constituents, especially of those which may be 

 used in Therapeutics. Comprehensive treatments of this 

 type have been carried out in such works as F. A. Fliicki- 

 ger, " Pharmakognosie des Pfianzenreiches ; " A. Meyer, 

 ** Wissenschaftliche Drogenkunde ; " Plancon et Collin, 

 "Les drogues simples d'origine vegetale," and other 

 smaller manuals, such as those of Marme, Moeller, 

 Wigand, and Herail et Bonnet. 



The subject-matter of Pharmacognosy may thus be 

 divided into several fields. It may be considered mainly 

 from the botanical point of view, constituting " Medical 

 Botany ; ' ' it may be considered from the standpoint of the 

 anatomist, " Histological or Anatomical Pharrhacognosy," 

 "Applied Plant Anatomy," or the entire interest of the 

 study may be directed toward the investigation of the 

 constituents, active and non-active, of the plant, in which 

 case the study may be termed " Pharmaceutical Chem- 

 istry," meaning by this not the chemistry of pharmaceutic 

 manufacture, but the chemistr}^ of plant analysis, as 

 outlined by Dragendorff and others. Finally there is a 

 commercial side to the study of Pharmacognosy, which 

 has to do with the methods of gathering, transporting, 

 packing and selhng of remedial agents. This has been 

 termed "Commercial Pharmacognosy."* 



The study of Pharmacognosy as a separate branch did 

 not begin until about the year 1825, when Martius began 

 to give his series of lectures at the University of Erlangen. 

 Even at the present time it is evident that Pharmacog- 

 nosy is not a branch of science with well-defined limita- 

 tions. It overlaps so many fields of inquiry and is a 



* See Essay by Tschirch of Berne in the Pharmaceutische Zeitung, 

 1881, No. 8, for a full discussion of the aims of modern Pharmacog- 

 nosy. See also Fliickiger, "The Principles of Pharmacognosy," 

 translated by Powers. 



