THE  AMEEICAN 
JOURNAL  OF  PHARMACY 
CONCERNING  THE  AMERICAN  MATERIA  MEDICA.* 
This  subject  cannot  be  considered,  even  superficially,  by  one 
who  comprehends,  even  to  a  degree,  its  outreaches,  without  a  ques- 
tion as  to  whether,  by  reason  of  the  limitation  of  time,  that  which 
most  appeals  may  be  reached  at  all.  Its  field  touches  and  its  sub- 
stance involves  the  various  professions  and  arts  of  medicine,  botany, 
chemistry,  pharmacy,  and  biology  in  their  many  and  diversified 
phases.  But  scant  justice  can  be  given  to  most  of  these,  for  they 
could  not  be  satisfactorily  treated  in  a  volume. 
The  course  of  the  American  materia  medica  has  been  tortuous. 
In  an  historical  sense  its  beginnings  are  all-important,  and  must 
neither  be  evaded  nor  neglected  by  me,  even  though,  by  reason  of 
the  time  consumed  in  its  telling,  that  which  most  I  crave  to  say 
be  left  unsaid.  I  do  not  know  that  any  one  has  ever  before  at- 
tempted to  construct  an  orderly  sequence  of  its  story,  nor  do  I 
know  that  any  man  has  ventured,  in  a  spirit  of  fairness,  toleration, 
and  admiration,  to  say  a  kind  word  for  both  friend  and  foe  involved 
in  the  mazes  of  past  prejudice  and  past  action,  in  which  so  innocent 
a  theme  as  the  American  materia  medica  served  as  a  text.  But  this 
issue  must  be  met  by  some  man,  some  day.  The  facing  of  it  to-day 
is  not  of  my  choice,  but  it  is  for  me  a  duty.  I  shall  therefore  try, 
in  the  brief  hour  at  my  command,  to  do  what  is  possible  to  connect 
JANUARY,  ipio 
By  John  Uri  Lloyd,  Phar.M.,  Cincinnati,  Ohio. 
PROLOGUE. 
*  Address  delivered  before  the  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy, 
November  4,  1909,  being  the  third  of  a  series  of  special  lectures  for  1909-10. 
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