28 Introduction 



closely to the at-one-time modern views of Scudder 

 and King, and they have failed to advance in this 

 day as these leaders advanced in their day; they 

 have practically ignored the teachings of pharma- 

 cology; they lay too little stress on assay methods 

 and physiological standardization; they have not 

 sufficiently eliminated inert medicaments from their 

 literature; they adhere to symptomatic and un- 

 scientific determination of dosage, which is usually 

 inadequate; they have laid too little emphasis upon 

 drugs of inorganic origin, such as mercury, iodine, 

 etc., and they have allowed the dominant school to 

 do most of the advanced work with the more prom- 

 inent and potent botanic remedies instead of doing 

 it themselves. To sum it up: They stand, as a 

 school, practically where they did forty years ago. 

 I reach these conclusions regretfully from an ex- 

 tensive reading of their literature and a large clinical 

 experience with their remedies. But many of their 

 original contentions are correct, else they had died 

 out years ago; and their pharmaceutical manufac- 

 turers have consistently maintained high standards. 

 It is time and it is necessary to modernize 

 botanic materia medica and therapeutics; to elim- 

 inate the obsolete therefrom; to push ahead even 

 as other branches of materia medica have advanced; 

 to drop old doctrines and theories and fit in botanic 

 medication with modern pathology, diagnosis, and 

 therapeutic technic; to give painstaking pharma- 

 cologic laboratory study to this class of remedies; 

 to base the use of these drugs upon exact laboratory 

 and clinical observation instead of upon obsession 

 born of one-sided enthusiasm; and to do all of these 



