186 THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY OF BOTANY TO MEDICINE. 
everywhere; and we unite with Mr. B. in saying to all young gar¬ 
deners— look about you. On their behalf we have a request to make, 
and we know of no one to propose it to more able to comply than 
Mr. B. himself; and that is to give a sketch of their practice in 
raising any one crop ; or, what would be better, giving the rotation of 
cropping on any given quarter or compartment of a market garden, for 
the space of five, seven, nine, or eleven years, or for whatever term 
includes their usual round of successional cropping. 
Mr. B. will excuse this direct appeal to him; and as he appears to 
he a “ready scribe,” we are sure that the task will not be difficult, nor 
any way disagreeable to him.— Ed. 
The Importance of the Study of Botany to Medicine. By 
C. Johnston, Lecturer on Botany at Guy’s Hospital. (From the 
Analyst.)—Reverting to the state of the medical profession some twenty 
or thirty years back, and the ignorance of too many of its self-elected 
practitioners of the most essential requisites for a pretender to the 
healing art—a knowledge of the anatomy and physiology of the human 
frame, and the symptoms and treatment of the various diseases by which 
its functions are liable to be interrupted and impaired, the denizen 
of the present time has much reason to congratulate himself upon the 
revolution which it has undergone since that period—a revolution that 
has contributed towards rendering even the uncertain tenure of mor¬ 
tality less precarious, by securing to him the advice and assistance 
of persons expressly qualified by their education for that purpose. 
The impudent system of quackery, so often held up to ridicule at the 
present day, was certainly not without its parallel formerly in the 
so called medical profession, when, after a longer or shorter period spent 
in pounding and compounding, the capability of administering both 
simples and compounds seemed naturally to follow. The lengthened 
and important course of studies required at the present day, does not 
wholly preclude the possibility of a man of inferior talent entering the 
profession ; but we have still the satisfaction of knowing that a complete 
blockhead has not the same opportunity that he once had of placing 
himself in competition with the man of ability and liberal education. 
Of the various branches that bear upon medical science, Botany 
seems to have been the most backward in arresting the attention 
of those intrusted with the superintendence of medical education. 
The improvement of this latter has been progressive; and the im¬ 
pression of the high importance of those studies, that led to a knowledge 
of the structure and functions of the animal body, of the practice of 
medicine, of chemistry, and materia medica, caused them, under the 
then existing circumstances, to precede that of botany. Hence, indeed. 
