744 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. [March 22, 187 $-. 
this route across unknown ground is thus traced out, the 
processes of exploration are multiplied and perfected, new 
points of view are discovered, the horizon is*extended, and 
at every halting-place fresh features are revealed full of 
interest to the student. In this progressive inarch the 
sciences no longer remain isolated from each other; on 
the. contrary, they lend a reciprocal support and unite 
their efforts against common difficulties. Some there are, 
which, having the most intimate relations with others, 
follow step by step their movements, borrow their pro¬ 
cesses, and benefit by their progress. Such a one is 
materia medica. Itself a science of application, it is 
naturally dependent upon other more general sciences. 
Therapeutics furnishes it with materials for study; the 
incessant explorations of chemistry in the organic world 
throw new light upon the composition of the products 
which it puts into use. But it is principally to natural his¬ 
tory that it is subordinated, being, so to speak, but one of 
the branches of that science; the study of the products ne¬ 
cessarily implying that of the beings which furnish them. 
The entire subject, however, is too vast to be dealt with 
under all its aspects, and here only the relations of the 
science of materia medica with that of its most important 
collateral science, botany, will be noticed. 
The Renaissance was a critical period in the history of 
~se relations ; before that time of scientific renovation 
otany scarcely existed. Theophrastus, the disciple of 
Aristotle, it is true, sought to do for it what his master 
had done for the history of animals. He tried to co-ordi¬ 
nate all the knowledge of the time respecting the organs, 
functions, and mutual relations of plants, but his attempt 
remained without influence. Vegetables were only looked 
upon as alimentary and medical materials ; they were 
only studied in their application to the healing art; 
botany became a branch of materia medica. During the 
centuries of the schoolmen the science was entirely con¬ 
fined to the works of the ancients, and botany was repre¬ 
sented only in sterile commentary on the books of Dios- 
corides. In vain some few men, as remarkable as they 
. vere rare, such as Albert le Grand or Roger Bacon, tried 
to restore the spirit of direct observation ; their voices 
were lost in the void, and the majority of authors clung 
without cessation to the errors of the time. 
But with the sixteenth century all this was changed. 
Botany was emancipated; it broke the yoke of materia 
medica, and, under the inspiration of observation, shone 
more brilliantly than in the time of Theophrastus. From 
this time it took its proper rank ; a phalanx of dis¬ 
tinguished men studied plants for themselves, and not 
only in respect of their medical properties. Clusius 
brought to the service of these new studies the elegance 
of his style and clearness of his descriptions ; Lobel his 
dogmatic ardour and scrupulous exactitude ; the Bauhins 
their immense erudition ; and all brought their intense 
desire to learn from and understand the great book of 
Nature. 
How did materia medica fare during this movement ? 
Did it lose anything by this overturning of parts, by this 
subordination of a science which had hitherto dominated ? 
On the contrary ; from this epoch must be dated its real 
progress. It is worthy of a remark, too, that the authors 
of this scientific revolution were ail medical men, attached 
to their art, and little disposed to sacrifice one of its most 
important branches ; the truth being, that by putting it 
into its proper place, they raised it from the vain and 
fastidious study of a book to an intelligent and free 
research in the field of nature. But, then, what progress 
there was, and how the history of medical products pro¬ 
fited by more generally directed botanical researches ! 
Open one of those old books, too often neglected in our 
uay, and one may be astonished at the matter which they 
contain. Instead of the vague and indecisive indications 
of Dioscorides, in which the commentators sought, often 
without success, to recognize the remedies of ancient 
medicine, there will be found descriptions of an exacti¬ 
tude previously unknown ; and figures, often very coarse, 
but nearly always of remarkable fidelity, in which may 
easily be recognized the plants or medicinal products 
employed at the time. And under a less superficial 
scrutiny the number of important facts brought under 
notice by these men will cause admiration. 
Hitherto nomenclature had been a veritable chaos. 
Whilst plants were looked upon only as medicaments, they 
were not compared with each other except in regard to 
their virtues and their uses, and thus the same generic 
name would be sometimes given to species the most dis¬ 
similar. It was thus that a Ranunculaceous and a Melan- 
thaceous plant both bore the name of hellebore; while a. 
species of larkspur, the easter daisy and the comfrey were 
united under a common name. On the other hand, the 
commentators, seeking chiefly to discover the plants of 
Dioscorides, sometimes thought they had found them in 
countries where they were unknown, and sealed their error 
by giving to the new species the name which belonged 
only to the old one. To this was added the embarrasment 
caused by the fact that the names of some species were 
multiplied by every author who studied them. But with 
direct observation, the study of plants in their true aspects 
became the occupation of scientific men; little by little 
these arbitrary distinctions disappeared; a common lan¬ 
guage began to be used, and one of the promoters of this 
scientific renovation, Gaspard Bauhin, gathering together 
in a sort of table all the complicated synonomy of his day,, 
laid the first foundations of a regular nomenclature. His 
“Pinax Theatri Botanici” became the scientific code ac¬ 
cepted by authors, until Linnaeus, crowning the work, 
applied to natural history the plan adopted by men of dis¬ 
tinguishing each other by a family and a baptismal name, 
or, in scientific language, the name of the genus and the 
name of the species. Henceforth materia medica was 
assured of having at its service, together with exact de¬ 
scriptions, a precise nomenclature, so that it might escape 
the confusion and uncertainty of former times. 
But botany did still more. It not only rid materia 
medica of the shackles which impeded its advance, but 
contributed directly to its progress by tracing out certain 
general laws. The fundamental problem of natural his¬ 
tory is to discover the relations which exist between dif¬ 
ferent orders of beings and their reciprocal affinities. 
This problem Tcurnefort partly solved by classing all the 
species known in his time into genera so natural that later 
observations, while modifying their extent, have not 
overthrown their foundations. But scarcely were these 
groups constituted when a lav/, most important in the 
application of plants in medicine, was discovered ; it was- 
that an intimate relation appeared to exist between the 
natural affinities of plants and their medicinal properties ; 
that species of the same genus resembled each other not 
only in their organization but in their properties; formu¬ 
lated by Linnaeus in the adage, “ Plantae qua? genere con- 
veniunt, virtute conveniunt.” This is not the place to. 
discuss this law. Many objections have been raised against 
it; many exceptions, difficult if not impossible to explain, 
appear to invalidate, if not to disprove it. But it cannot 
be denied that its promulgation has exercised a consider¬ 
able influence upon the progress of materia medica. It 
has given to researches, previously isolated, an object and 
a direction; it has added the attractions of generalizations, 
generally seductive to the savant, to the interest which 
always attaches to the study of useful products; it has led 
minds of a truly philosophic mould to the study of phar¬ 
macology. Finally, the discussions which it has raised 
have contributed to enrich with valuable facts the natural 
history of medicaments. 
The investigation of natural affinities has rendered yet 
other services to materia medica : it has given rise to the 
idea of the relative importance of characters, an idea that 
has exercised, and may still exercise, a considerable 
influence upon pharmacological studies. The various- 
modes by which objects are revealed to our senses, and 
which serve to distinguish one from another, and to gather 
them into natural groups, are not all of the same value 
