iv. INTRODUCTION. 



ladies who give medicines to their sick neigh- 

 bours, for a great deal of their business ; for out 

 of little disorders they make great ones. This 

 may be the case where their shops supply the 

 means ; for chemical medicines, and some of the 

 drugs brought from abroad, arc not to be trusted 

 with those who have not great experience ; hut 

 there will be no danger of this kind, when the 

 fields are the suppl}'. This is the medicine of na 

 lure, and as it is more efficacious in most cases 

 it is more safe in ail. If opium may be danger- 

 ous in an unexperienced hand, the lady who will 

 give in its place a syrup of the wild lettuce, 

 (a plant not known in common practice at this 

 time, but recommended from experience in this 

 treatise^) will find that it will ease pain, and that 

 it will cause sleep, in the manner of that foreign drug, 

 but she will never find any ill consequences from 

 it: and the same migh! be said in many other in 

 stances. 



As the descriptions in this work, very readily 

 distinguish what are* the real plants that should he 

 used, the great care will remain, in what man- 

 ner to gather and preserve, and in what man- 

 ner to give them ; it will he useful to add a chap- 

 ter or two on those heads. As to the former, I 

 would have it perfectly understood, because a great 

 deal depends upon it ; the latter cannot easily be mis- 

 taken. 



Having displaced the dings brought from 

 abroad in a great measure from this charitable 

 practice, I would have every lady, who has the 

 spirit of this true benevolence, keep a kind of 

 druggist's shop of her own : this should he sup- 

 plied from the neighbouring fields, and from her 

 garden. There is no reason the drugs should not 

 be as well preserved, and as carefully laid up, 



