PREFACE 





treated with native plants, I feel justified in the hope that their 

 use will spread rapidly in the Philippines. 



To employ therapeutically the drugs described in this work 

 is not to experiment " in anima vilis," as some would have us 

 believe. To experiment is to employ unknown remedies of 

 unknown virtues and properties. 



In this treatise I am not attempting to fix the indications for 

 this or that product, but simply make known the diseases in 

 which the Filipinos and the natives of other countries employ 

 the products. Any physician has a perfect right to prescribe 

 these drugs, as have also the u curanderos " and even the laity, 

 with this difference, however, that the physician is capable of 

 observing results and guiding himself by the physiologic action 

 of the drugs. His knowledge of the physiologic and anatomo- 

 pathologic problems of the human body, will enable the phy- 

 sician to make scientific inferences that would be hidden from 

 the common " curandero." 



As neither the Manila nor the provincial physicians keep 

 these medicinal plants in stock, with the exception of those 

 that are official in the European and American pharmacopoeias, 

 it will be necessary for the physician who wishes to use them, 

 to busy himself with seeking them and laying in a sufficient 

 stock to serve him when the opportunity presents itself. It is 

 necessary to preserve them by drying and this is best done by 

 exposing them several days to the fresh air in a dry place — 

 for example, the corridors of the house — being careful not to 

 expose them to the rays of the sun, in which latter event the 

 fleshy and juicy plants which do not desiccate rapidly, putrefy 

 or ferment. 



A convenient way to get them is to visit the Binondo Square 

 where there has been market for native drugs from time im- 

 memorial. The gardeners from the neighboring towns, es- 

 pecially those from Pasay and Singalon, regularly offer the 

 plants for sale and will undertake to supply you with any that 



