INTRODUCTION. 
li 
the testimony of experience, — a testimony no stronger than that 
which has supported scores of other agents eventually discarded. 
If the indications, given by the pharmacological examination of 
a drug, are opposed to experience in its favour, the latter must 
almost certainly be at fault.” 
But clinical experiences and observations of eminent physi- 
cians on the actions of a drug are as much entitled to respect and 
consideration as its pharmacological examination. So the view of 
the writer quoted above does not seem to us to be sound. 
The modern method of therapeutical investigation is, first, 
to observe the action of a drug on a healthy animal, and then to 
make the results applicable to pathological states. The ancients 
recognised only one mode of studying the effects of a remedy, 
and that was by the simple observation of effects produced by 
drugs when administered in disease. This clinical observation 
of the action of remedies has been productive of some good, but 
it is questionable if much progress was effected so long as this 
method alone was employed. Towards the beginning of the 
nineteenth century, the necessity for ascertaining the actions of 
remedies by experiments on animals, was recognised by Bichat, 
Majendie, and others. This modern method of therapeutical 
research promises a great success. Working on this line, Lauder 
Brunton was able to use with success nitrite of amyl in angina 
pectoris. Here a correct application of a known action in a drug 
was made serviceable in the very first trial. The pharmacological 
experiments and clinical observations will thus settle the claims 
of Indian drugs on our attention. 
III. 
The Vedic Aryans were acquainted with about a hundred 
medicinal plants. When a king appoints a Purohita, he repeats 
a prayer in which he entreats that all the herbs of a hundred 
kinds over which King Soma rules will grant him uninterrupted 
happiness. 
From the works of Charaka and Sushruta we learn that the 
Indo-Aryans were acquainted with a large number of medicinal 
» Dr. D. J. Leech in Vol. I of Allbutt’s System of Medicine. London, 1896. 
