PREFACE. IX 



to the general as well as to the medical reader : for this 

 purpose, a complete glossary of the terms employed will be 

 found at the end of the work. Medical science, we are assured, 

 rests on too firm a basis to fear the exposition and general 

 diffusion of its principles ; and while no countenance should be 

 given to the pernicious practice of tampering with drugs, cir- 

 cumstances often render a knowledge of simple remedies 

 highly important and useful, whereby the benevolent indi- 

 vidual may dispense to the indigent and suffering, that sea- 

 sonable relief, without which the other offices of charity are 

 incomplete and unavailing. For the same reason, the more 

 familiar of medicinal plants cultivated in gardens, and easy of 

 access, are introduced; the poisonous vegetables of Great 

 Britain are particularly described, and directions given for 

 counteracting their baneful effects. 



In conclusion, we acknowledge ourselves peculiarly indebted 

 to the valuable Apparatus Medicaminum of Murray; the 

 Flore Medicale of M. Chaumeton; Woodville's Medical Botany : 

 Smith and Sowerby's English Botany; De Candolle's Prodromus 

 Regni Vegetabilis, &:c. 



