VI PREFACE. 



plants, and was helped in this portion of his task by an able 

 member of the Indian Civil Service, who to his other accom- 

 plishments adds a great taste for Botany. His notes have been 

 incorporated by Colonel Kirtikar in the botanical descriptions. 



Before his lamented death, which took place on the 9th May, 

 1917, Colonel Kirtikar had left in manuscript the botanical de- 

 scriptions of almost all the plants mentioned in this work. It is 

 to be greatly regretted that he did not live to give a finishing 

 touch to his writings. He was, however, able to revise the 

 proofs of about the first 500 pages of this book. 



When we undertook the preparation of this work, it was 

 decided that it would not be a treatise on Materia Medica. A 

 work of that nature should include — 



" (1) Characters and means of recognition of the crude drug 

 including — 



(a) External appearance, feel, [taste], smell, weight, &c. 



(b) Microscopical characters and tests. 



(c) General adulterants and mode of detection. 



(2) To know whence and how the drug is obtained. 



(3) The general properties of the crude drug, and the source 

 of its special properties, i.e., its active principle, treated 

 generally. 



(4) To know the method of development of the drug itself, 

 so far as practicable ; and the nature, anatomical and develop- 

 mental, of the structures whence it is obtained. 



(5) The preparations in which the drug forms a part, the 

 processes of preparation and their rationale ; methods of mani- 

 pulation, etc. 



(6) The doses of the drug and of its preparations. 



(7) The physiological action of the drug and its preparations." 



Pharmacographia Indica by Messrs. Dymock, Warden and 

 Hooper still remains an authoritative work on Indian Materia 

 Medica. The present work is a Botany of Indian Medicinal 

 Plants and so no account of drugs procurable in Indian bazars 

 is given in it. 



It is true that most of the illustrations in this publication are 

 reproductions from those in various works on Indian Botany and 



