INTRODUCTION. 



xli 



The present war has shown the necessity of using herbs and 

 plants in preference to Synthetics. The President of the Bo- 

 tanical section of the British Association held at New Castle in 

 1916, very truly observed, regarding the medicinal plant 

 industry, " Experience would indicate that here is opportunity for 

 investigation, and, unless due care is taken, also danger of 

 waste of time, money and effort. A careful systematic study of 

 species, varieties and races is in some cases desirable in order to 

 ensure the growth of the most productive or valuable plant ; 

 and such a study might also reveal useful substitutes or addi- 

 tions. Here the co-operation between the scientific worker and 

 the commercial man is imperative." 



The study of medicinal plants is neglected by medical men 

 all over the world, but more so in India. These are con- 

 temptuously referred to as " old women's" remedies. * It is our 

 misfortune that the chemistry and pharmacology of most of these 

 plants have not been properly investigated. 



The late Right Hon'ble Mr. Gladstone was a man of extra- 

 ordinary genius. As a scholar, politician, and statesman he will 

 ever shine in the pages of English history as long as England is 

 not effaced from the map of the World. In the course of a 

 speech, delivered on the 26th March, 1890, on the occasion of 

 the opening of Guy's Hospital Residential College, referring to 

 the importance of the study of Botany with a view to learn 

 the " qualities of plants which are so remarkable and power 

 ful in their healing capacities," he said : — 



" I am not aware whether Botany now forms a recognised branch of the 

 medical education, but I cannot help wishing that it did, and hoping that it 

 may in the future, first of all, not ODly because it is in itself a most beautiful 



*Dr. John Foote, Associate Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics, 

 Georgetown University, Washington, writes of the importance of Trees in 

 Medicine as folloms : — 



" And yet, in spite of the pharmaceutical image breakers and the thera- 

 peutic nihilists, some of the most valuable remedies used in medicine come 

 from trees. * * * 



"And if, as has been asserted, the decadence of Rome was really due to 

 malaria, and if her glory was obscured by a cloud of mosquitoes rather than 

 by the dust of battles, then it may be that the possession of some cinchona 

 and the planting of the eucalyptus in the Roman marshes might have pre- 

 vented a great civilization from withering and fluttering away and changed 

 the countenance of historv." [Scientific American Supplement, January 13, 

 1917 p. 26]. 



F 



