
          A work published in the city of New York, [crossed out: illegible] [added: more than] a
year ago, by a certain Samuel Henry, entitled "A new and complete
American Medical family Herbal," &c. &c. has only just reached us
in this remote corner of the union. Great has been the anxiety of many
of our medical and botanical literati in this wild country to obtain
a peep at a work, which, originating in one of the most populous
and learned cities in the [crossed out: illegible] [added: central] section of the United States, and published
under the immediate inspection of some of the most learned professors
in the world, was very reasonably anticipated would prove a most
invaluable acquisition. The ardor of expectation, however, had been somewhat
damped by a brief notice taken of this "American family herbal" under 
the head of "Domestic literary intelligence," in the Analectic magazine for Nov.
1814. Here, it was slyly insinuated that the author was an unlettered man;
that his scientific names were often grossly misspelt, or erroneous, and that
even his nostrums and specifics were of doubtful authority. Still, as
the writer of this article was of opinion, that notwithstanding the erroneous
scientific names, and the gross misspelling of them, the author was "well
acquainted with most [added: of] our native herbs and their simpler applications
in medicine," a comfortable hope remained that it might be of
great use, at least, "in the hands of a scientific botanist."

The long looked for work at last arrived in the form of a royal
octavo volume containing near three hundred pages, elegantly
bound and gilt. Although neither its splendid title, fulsome
dedication, nor bombastical preface, all dictated in the true egotistical 
style of genuine quackery, afforded much indication of anything
valuable, the names of two very learned professors [Samuel L. Mitchell and Samuel Thompson], and the 
President of the Medical Society of N. [New] York [i.e. James Tillary] in recommendation
of it, of course, induced us to judge favorably, untill we had an
opportunity of ascertaining its intrinsic merit for ourselves. After
a very attentive perusal we are constrained to announce with sincere
regret our entire disappointment respecting the value of this
American herbal, which, in our estimation, is so extremely defective
in every point of view, that were it not for the respectable
scientific gentlemen, whose names, by some unaccounable 
oversight or infatuation became prefixed as
abettors of the grossest imposition, we should dismiss it as
        