Address. 
peeted, which may be advantageously brought to bear in the 
cure of diseases, in the hands of skilful physicians. Our na- 
tive botany, therefore, forms a field, as yet but imperfectly 
explored, and which, when properly cultivated, will yield a 
harvest of important discoveries. Connected with the disco- 
very of native plants, will be afforded the opportunity of in- 
vestigating them chemically, with a view to separate their 
active principles, and thus to prepare them most advanta- 
geously for the use of the physician. Here then are incen- 
tives to exertion which might arouse the most indifferent, 
and opportunities for distinction which are not enjoyed in Eu- 
rope, where the botany and chemistry of the indigenous 
plants have been so thoroughly investigated as to leave far 
less to be accomplished than with us. 
I now dismiss my remarks on the subject of the obligation, 
which you are all under, of continuing still to improve your- 
selves in your profession, and of exerting your abilities to add 
something of importance to the stock of its knowledge ; 
whereby you may honourably connect your name with the 
pharmaceutical art for all future time. Passing from these 
topics, I shall next make a few remarks on some ethical 
points connected with your profession, which may not be out 
of place in the present address. 
The physician has the good fortune to possess a classical 
work on medical ethics, written by one of the brightest or- 
naments of the medical profession in Great Britain. It is to 
be regretted, that as yet we possess no similar treatise, ex- 
pressly written on pharmaceutical ethics. This desideratum 
is yet to be supplied, and from the want of the assistance of 
such a work, the remarks which I may here make will ne- 
cessarily be very imperfect. 
The professions of medicine and pharmacy should care- 
fully avoid invading the province of each other. In all well 
organized communities, the professions are in different hands ; 
and while the physician should not exercise pharmacy, apo- 
thecaries should carefully avoid prescribing for diseases. In 
country situations, however, the physician is compelled to 
perform some of the simpler operations of pharmacy ; and 
