10 Preface 



effort will be made to present herein a careful record 

 of data upon such botanic drugs as seem to hold a 

 respected and warranted place in medical litera- 

 ture. The large number of botanic drugs recog- 

 nized in the pharmacopeias of the leading nations 

 testifies to the importance of this class of remedial 

 agencies in medical practice. Therefore, the list 

 of such plant remedies discussed herein will not be 

 pedantically limited. 



Frankly favoring the development of our own 

 American drug industries, indigenous American 

 plant remedies will be quite generally noticed, even 

 though it must be conceded that many of them 

 are of but minor importance, so far as we know 

 at present. Some gentlemen may consider it as 

 detracting from the scientific value of a medical 

 work to enter into a discussion of minor drugs, 

 and from a certain point of view such a criticism 

 is justified; but, and the author realizes the fact 

 most acutely, it is quite impossible, in our present 

 state of knowledge, to prepare a truly scientific text 

 upon the subject matter here undertaken. Hence, 

 this book pretends to nothing more than what it 

 actually is, and does not pose in the light of the 

 scientific exactitude illumining a modern text book 

 upon bacteriology or operating-room technic, nor 

 can it do so. 



Nevertheless it is not markedly to our credit 

 that the botanic remedies, the ones longest known, 

 some of them for thirty centuries, are the class least 

 understood in the whole range of curative resource. 

 So, then, a book upon this subject must, of necessity, 

 be marked by numerous inconclusive passages and 

 but semi-scientific divisions. 



