298 
Original Communications. 
personally met with, than of one who is known to us only by 
reputation. The Materia Medica, therefore, should always 
be studied and taught with the individual medicines before 
the student ; and this not only in their entire state and ordinary 
form, but in all the varieties in which they are found in the 
market, and in all the states of preparation to which they are 
ofiicinally brought. 
Other sources of interest exist from which the teacher may 
draw liberally without dimininishing the value of his instruc- 
tion. A continuous detail of facts, which, from the necessity 
for their remembrance, demand close attention, often becomes 
excessively fatiguing by keeping the mind constantly on the 
stretch. In the Materia Medica, frequent opportunities are 
offered of intermingling with the description of the medicine 
narratives of its original discovery and therapeutical applica- 
tion, and various circumstances with regard to the plant pro- 
ducing it, the mode of its collection, and its commercial his- 
tory, which, as they are not essentially important, allow of 
some relaxation of the attention, and thus refresh and invigo- 
rate the mind for new efforts. Nor can the impression which 
such narratives may leave on the memory of the student be 
considered as altogether unprofitable. They do not enable 
him to cure disease with greater facility; but they augment 
his fund of pleasing reflection by connecting with the sub- 
stances which come under his daily notice a numerous train 
of associations, afford him the means of appearing to greater 
advantage in social intercourse by increasing his conversa- 
tional resources, and give that kind of pleasing relief, in the 
eyes of the world, to the solidity of his professional know- 
ledge, which the column in Grecian architecture receives 
from the ornaments about its capital. 
It is a great mistake to suppose, that no other knowledge 
is requisite for the accomplished physician than that which is 
essential to the mere physical management of disease. In 
any pursuit or business whatever, an exclusive devotion to 
one train of thought, has the effect of narrowing and cramp- 
