Tilt: 
Vol. XI. 
COLOMBO, MAY 2 nd, 1892. 
[NO. 11 
DICTIO.VAKY of JfATKRlA MKUICA.- 
N E of the characteristicB of 
a true-born Briton is said to 
be an innate love of physic. 
Whether this be true or not, 
it is certain that a large pro- 
portion of tlie British public 
are habitual medicine- con- 
sumers. Excluding those who have no choice in 
the matter, and who passively swallow whatever is 
prescribed for them, a good many it is well-known 
are only too fond of oxperinionting on themselves 
without leave or license from any orthodox authority, 
especially siuco the homoeopathic craze has ren- 
dered amateur doctoring so easy. They believe only 
too readily every puffing advertisement of every patent 
“ certain cure ” if it be only judiciously backed up 
by pretended, or, it may be, genuine testimonials 
from patients who had been or had gone 
the round of the faculty without experiencing any 
benefit, or liad been bedridden for 20 years, &c. tfec. ; 
and the very victims who are thus deluded become 
unwittingly the baits with which new traps are set 
for the unwary. Only let two or throe of the leading 
members in a community be persuaded— it 
does not matter by wbat means — to use a 
quack drug, and its success thereafter, aa 
regards the general public, is only a matter of time. 
Now it is not quite so difficult a thing as some 
boliovo to “catch your hare,” to sccui'o a few promi- 
nent men, in order to puff a qiiack article into 
notoriety. The ignorance shown by so-called edu- 
cated men in such Rimple matters as the structure 
or functions of their internal organs, the law’s of 
health and disease, the processes by which morbid 
conditions are overcome, the mode in which medi- 
cines act in aiding, altering, or counteracting these 
processes, is so extreme, that the quack who is only 
too cognizant of this fact, as well as of the child- 
like credulity which most men evince in matters 
witli which they are not familiar, is ready to take 
advantage of such ignorance and aimpio faith, by 
clothing his appeals to tlieir vanity and aelf-oonoeit, 
or it may be to their avarice and self intoreat, in 
a tisane of scientific jargon and cunningly disgnised 
fallacies, which seldom fails m its object. It la 
80 pleasant to think that one can at a bound 
BBaki the heights of medical knowledge which the 
orthodox disciples of .dilsculapius have reached 
* Dictionary of Mstetin Medi ca an^ Therapeutic-. A 
HesuisS of the Action an 1 Doeea of all Offacinai and None- 
Oflioiuel Druga with their Scientific, Oommon and Native 
names and Syuonyooe, and in maiiy instancos theif 
Preiiffh German aud Indian Rguivaleiita. By C Henri 
Leonard, a. m.. m. D-, and Thomas Christy, K. t.s., etc. 
London: Baillidfe.Tinaal end Cox, publishers, and 21, 
King William Street, Strand, London 18'J2. 
only after a toilsome life-long journe^y, or per- 
adventure have not reached at all. So pleasant, 
for instance, to conoct any indiscretion one may 
have been guilty of in diet or drink, and to stave on 
the symptoms of a congested liver, or the warmnga 
of an impending fit oi rheumatism or *gon^ by a 
dose of Cockle’s Pills or Mother Sairey Gamp a 
Syrup, unfettered by the vexatious restrictions on 
one’s favourite tipple which the ordinary medical 
attendant imposes as a rule when he assumes charge 
of the case. And besides there is no question but 
that some of these quack remedies do sometlnios benefit 
some patients. Most of these infallible cures have 
an aperient action; and there are few diseases which 
are not relieved at some stage by aporiout medicine 
whatever its composition. Others again get well 
while using these remedies, and even in anlte of them, 
thanks to the wonderful self-reparative, Bolf-restoraXive 
powers of nature. But as there is no fallacy which 
BO easily imposes on the lay mind — or vc j 
matter on the professional mind when untrained to 
logical reasoning— as the past hoc enjo propter /*oc 
fallacy, the cure is attributed to the roinedy last 
used, and thus new advocates are gained to 
plead in its favour, new testimonials made 
available to puff it into still further no^- 
riety. Popnlus vvit dccepi et decipiatnf. ^^be 
public bud themselves to deception only too readily, 
ileuce the enormous fortunes made by men like 
Holloway, Morison, cVc. Hence too the astounding 
fact tiiat no loss than £225,701 was received for 
stamps on patent medicines alone last year by the In- 
land llevonuo authorities; an amount which, consider- 
ing that the stamp on a shilling bottle or box of medicine 
is only throe-haJfpence, represents some ^ 
hotilea annually sold to the public in the Umtod 
^But°tho°craving for medicinea is not *9 
the Uritiah public. It exists overywh^e, and indeed 
seems instinctive with all races. Drugs of some 
kind seem to have been a necessity from all time— 
as imperative almost as food. Bhubarb is mentioned 
in a Chinese book 2.700 b.c. and a fragment of a 
cuneiform Babylonian inscription deciphered by J. 
IlaWvy (llecordsof the Post, Vol. XI. p. 159, Ijondon, 
187H) shows that at least a thousand years before the 
time of Moses and the first recorded notice on the sub- 
ject of medicine in the Bible (Exodus xxx, 25, .95) 
the Babylonians or rather the Aecadians had already 
attained a considerable amount of pharmacentioal 
knowledge. 
One would have to go very far back indeed into tho 
history of tlio past to trace the origin of physio. 
Moat probably it was instinctive (hence the snpor- 
iiatiu'al origin ascribed to it by the earliest nations), 
just as it is at the present day among the lower 
animals. Dogs it is well-known have their hereditary 
knowledge of herbals. In most folklore stories 
various animals are believed to have a special know- 
ledge of remedies for various diseases and injuries — 
especially antidotes for poisons, Ac. It is by imitat- 
ing them perhims that man gradually came to 
acquire a knowledge of the medicinal virtues of various 
plants. Chance and observation and experiments 
added to the original stock from time to time, while 
with the extension of oomineroe and international 
