botanically arranged. 397 



has never been taught in any of our Colleges, and to the difficulties 

 that are supposed to attend it ; but principally to the mistaken 

 opinion of its inutility in common life. This opinion being so 

 generally prevalent, it may be necessary to observe, that, tho' all 

 the medical properties and oeconomical uses of plants are not 

 discoverable from these characters by which they are systemati- 

 cally arranged ; yet the celebrated Linnceus has found, that the 

 virtues of plants may be, in a considerable degree, and most safe- 

 ly, determined by their natural characters : for plants of the 

 same natural class are in some measure similar ; those of the 

 same natural order have a still nearer affinity ; and those of the 

 same genus have very seldom been found to differ in their me- 

 dical virtues. Thus, according to the sexual system, plants of 

 the second order in the third class are all esculent, affording food 

 for men, beasts or birds : and no one species of all those nume- 

 rous genera have been found to be poisonous. The starry 

 plants of the first order in the fourth class are chiefly diuretic. 

 The rough-leaved plants of the fifth class and first order are 

 mucilaginous ; but those of a disagreeable taste and smell, most- 

 ly berry-bearing plants, are more or less corrosive and poison- 

 ous. The umbelliferous plants, growing in dry places, are 

 aromatic and stimulative, but in wet ground, often poisonous. 

 Plants of the sixth class have roots, according to their smell or 

 taste, either esculent or poisonous. The plants with horned 

 antherae of the eighth and tenth classes are astringent, and their 

 berries acid and esculent. All the pulpy fruit of the twelfth 

 class may be eaten with safety. Plants of the thirteenth class 

 are chiefly poisonous : but those of the first order in the four- 

 teenth are odoriferous, cephalic and resolvent ; and none of 

 them are poisonous. Nor is there any poisonous plant belong- 

 ing 



