INTRODUCTION. 



Physiology. 



LINNiEAN AND NATURAL SYSTEMS 



Flowers have always been held in high estimation by that 

 part of creation which they symbolize — the gentle sex. To 

 appreciate them, the mind must be raised in a measure above 

 the ordinary cares of life, and more especially above its mean- 

 ness and pollution. It was remarked of the poet Burns, and 

 may be said of any botanist, that he could see more beauty in 

 the thistle that grew at his door, than another might view in the 

 most gorgeous spectacle on earth. To give this power of finer 

 perception will be our object, sure that all who possess it cannot 

 rest with it alone, but will soon look from nature up to nature's 

 God, viewing her as the agent she sings herself in the German 

 song— 



'Tis thus at the roaring loom of time I ply, 



And weave for God the garment, thou viewest him by. 



The truly useful is always the truly beautiful ; and we find 

 this truth carried out in the products of the vegetable kingdom, 

 vhich if eaten in their season, will, as a general rule, prevent 

 disease ; and many times after disease really occurs, prove in- 

 struments of cure. About two years ago, we had a patient under 

 our charge who was suffering from a severe diarrhoea; and 

 for whom all medicinal remedies were not only useless, but 

 positively injurious. At last we thought of trying peaches, 

 which were then ripe, and uncommonly fine. After eating 

 about a dozen, he became speedily and perfectly cured. We 

 took the hint from nature, and since then our practice in such 

 cases has been eminently successful. We believe the time 

 will come when a remedy will be found for every disease, and 

 that perhaps even in the environs of our city an antidote grows 

 to arrest the progress of the destroyer, Consumption. And as 

 the period draws nigh in which there shall be no more sickness, 



