are of opinion, that all writers give too much attention to 
Materia Mediea, and too little to Therapeutics, we must 
endeavour, in our observations on each article, as well as 
on each class of remedies, to avoid, if possible, incurring 
this reproach ; without, however, encroaching on the pro- 
vince of the Professor of Medicine. 
Such are the several Sciences connected with the various 
articles of Materia Mediea. These, it will be needless, 
nay, impossible, to enumerate. Such as are now in use, 
will, of course, be the objects of our special attention. 
Those which have ceased to be so, or have not yet become 
generally established, may, without entering into details, 
serve to establish a principle, or elucidate the works of 
some of the masters in medicine. Under each of the former, 
we shall have to attend both to its Natural History charac- 
ters, its Physical properties, Chemical composition, Physio- 
logical effects, and Therapeutical uses, as well as its Pharma- 
ceutical preparations, and its Literary and Commercial 
history. The last, in a country like Great Britain, it 
would be supposed must be both correct and easy to pro- 
cure ; but it will generally be found that traders care little, 
except about the price of a drug, and the port where it may 
be purchased ; and brokers, in this country, think only of the 
ship in which it was imported, and the place whence this 
was cleared; though the substance itself may have been 
first conveyed thither from very distant regions. We 
shall be led, therefore, to a geographical inquiry into the 
countries where our drugs are produced. America, the 
latest discovered, may be most quickly dismissed, as com- 
paratively less complicated in the commercial history of 
its products; though from the unequalled extent of territory, 
and great diversity of climate, it supplies almost every 
variety of medicinal agent, and among them many of our 
most valuable drugs, as bark, ipecacuanha, jalap, &c. The 
