PAEEAMATTA DTSTEICT. 95 



importance of Medical Botany, that in the earlier times the 

 knowledge of plants was almost exclusively medicinal. In modern 

 times, it has been too often the practice to condemn the use of 

 simple remedies as being anile and quackish, and^to extol prepara- 

 tions of a mineral character as being more certain, speedy, and 

 uniform, in their operation. Simple as old women's remedies 

 may be, they generally possess the advantage of being harmless. 

 If they do not effect much good, or at all events, if they do not 

 come up to the mineral medicines in the rapidity of their action, 

 they seldom do much harm ; whilst it cannot be denied that the 

 use of calomel and other such medicines, in the hands of unskilful 

 practitioners, often lays the foundation of incurable distempers 

 in the constitution. In such a state of things, therefore, it can- 

 not be denied that the homoeopathic doctors are rendering incal- 

 culable service to society by introducing to notice some of the 

 old-fashioned medicines, simple in character, indigenous to most 

 countries, and easy of preparation. I am not now discussing the 

 question as to the comparative merits of homoeopathy, or allopathy, 

 but simply adverting to a fact which ere long may have its in- 

 fluence in developing the medicinal resources of Australia. When, 

 we look round us even in the Parramatta district, there is, indeed, 

 a wide and almost untrodden field before our eyes, containing 

 deeply -buried truths and startling mysteries, which a long life 

 would fail entirely to elicit. The harvest to be reaped is plenteous, 

 but the labourers are few. With the exception of Dr. Ferdinand 

 Mueller, the eminent botanist of Victoria, scarcely anyone has 

 instituted any experiments into the hidden properties of our 

 native plants, and for his researches indeed the people of Parra- 

 matta, as well as the scientific world in general, stand deeply 

 indebted, for amongst some of those which he has tested, several 

 species occur in our immediate neighbourhood. But Dr. Mueller, 

 profound and energetic as he is, has not time for pursuing so 

 abstruse an investigation. His duties as Government Botanist 

 of Victoria, and Director of the Botanical Garden in Melbourne, 

 as well as the multifarious works he is engaged in preparing for 

 the press, preclude the possibility of his doing much for practical 

 chemistry. The light, however, which he is throwing upon the 

 subject of medical botany cannot fail to have its effect, and it is 

 sincerely to be hoped, that others profiting by the valuable 



