INTRODUCTION. xlix 



them and the uses to which they are put. * If we turn to the 

 past history of our art, we find that our knowledge regarding 

 the properties of some of the most useful medicines has been 

 obtained in this empirical way. 



Lastly, we should not neglect to bestow our attention on those 

 indigenous plants which have not been used medicinally by the 

 natives of this country, but are in much use in other countries. 



After recording the medicinal uses, we have to commence 

 the more important subject, viz., that of " weeding out the 

 worthless from the good " amongst these medicinal plants. For 

 this purpose, we have to seek the aid of chemistry. It is well- 

 known that plants generally owe their virtues as medicinal agents 

 to certain characteristic alkaloids and principles present in them. 

 Because a complete and full chemical analysis of the medicinal 

 plants of this country has not yet been performed, it is therefore 

 that there exists so much uncertainty regarding their actions. 

 This isolation of principles will constitute a great improvement 

 in pharmacy. For, then, instead of using preparations made 

 from plants which differ in constitution from time to time, and 

 vary in the strength of their active principles and physiological 

 characteristics, depending on the climate, season, and amount of 

 sunshine under which, and the soil in which, they have grown, we 

 should use the active principles in which the same variability is 

 unlikely to occur. Moreover, they would possess the advantages 

 of being always alike, easily assimilable and capable of ready 

 solubility, ease in administration and rapidity as well as certainty 

 of action. Then a practitioner also could carry his whole 

 dispensary in a portable form.t 



This chemical analysis would also help us in determining 

 the actions of medicines in health and disease. It should, 

 however, be borne in mind, that chemical analysis but imperfectly 

 reveals the real nature of many drugs. The presence of dissociated 



* Vanausadi Pmkds, by Mr. Vasudev Chintainan Bapat, in Mahrathi, is 

 as far as I -know, the only work which gives the uses to which some of the 

 medicinal plants are put by the natives of Concan. 



| The alkaloids have all been discovered within the last 100 years. For 

 want of chemical investigation indigenous drugs are used in their crude forms, 

 instead of their alkaloids or active principles. Brunton's " Iron Age of 

 Therapeutics," is one of remote and uncertain future, but I believe a great 

 deal of iron, if not steel, can be extracted, very useful for all practical 

 purposes from the stones in the shape of our indigenous drugs. 



G 



