Vlll PREFACE 



desired. If in the future I have the good fortune to procure 

 any, I shall make a study of those at hand and publish the 

 results. 



I herewith publish the results of my investigations and ex- 

 periments in Manila, where, especially in the neighboring towns 

 of San Mateo and San Miguel, I often had opportunities for 

 using, with good results, the plants of which this volume 

 treats. I may add that in spite of the limited means at my 

 disposal in Manila and the short time left me by my regular 

 occupations I was able to conduct a few laboratory experi- 

 ments owing to which this work contains some personal obser- 

 vations reinforcing those quoted from medical literature. 



The flora of the Archipelago is known to-day through the 

 works of Fathers Blanco, Llanos, Fernandez del Yillar and 

 Naves, and of the engineers Jordano, the brothers Vidal and 

 Soler and others who have brought such honor to Spanish 

 science, preparing the way for the study of the therapeutic and 

 industrial applications of that wonderfully rich plant life with 

 which our islands have been endowed. Their works help us 

 to recognize the plants whose medicinal virtues are herein de- 

 scribed and it is to them I owe the botanical descriptions in 

 this treatise. 



Father Blanco, in describing certain plants, mentions their 

 medicinal uses in the Philippines, but his descriptions are few 

 and very deficient as one would expect in a work of the scope 

 of his Flora. A Jesuit of some reputation, Father Clain, pub- 

 lished in Manila in 1712 a book entitled "Kemedios faciles 

 para diferentes enfermedades ? " in which he speaks of the 

 medicinal virtues of some of the indigenous plants, almost the 

 same ones that appear in another work, a frank and pleasing 

 little treatise written by Father Santa Maria. Father Mer- 

 cado is the only one who has written a special treatise on the 

 subject and his manuscript remained unedited until the Augus- 

 tinian Fathers of Manila published it in the last edition of 



