EDITORIAL. 
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amount  of  highly  important  knowledge,  in  reference  to  the  therapeutic 
value  of  remedies,  and  especially  of  our  Native  American  plants,  has  been 
accumulated  by  liberal  minded  physicians  in  America  ;  which  knowledge, 
owing  to  various  causes,  has  never  yet  been  sufficiently  brought  before  the 
medical  profession  generally,  and  has  not  been  embodied  in  the  voluminous 
standard  works  of  Pereira,  Wood  &  Bache,  Dunglison,  etc.  This  know- 
ledge being  especially  American  in  its  origin,  and  having  produced  a  marked 
peculiarity  in  the  practice  of  a  large  number  of  American  physicians,  we 
deem  it  proper  to  style  this  work  the  "  American  Eclectic  Dispensatory," 
to  distinguish  it  from  other  works,  wrhich  contain  only  the  ideas  and  views 
which  are  common  to  both  American  and  European  physicians." 
Our  author,  after  enumerating  more  than  one  hundred  and  twenty  indi- 
genous plants,  and  numerous,  so-called  principles,  as  aletrin,  apocynine, 
caulophylin,  &c,  the  knowledge  of  which,  he  claims  as  the  fruits  of  eclectic- 
ism, remarks :  • 
"  The  extensive  use  of  the  foregoing  articles,  and  their  consequent  sub- 
stitution on  many  occasions,  for  the  favorite  remedies  formerly  in  use,  con- 
stitutes a  practical  improvement,  the  value  of  which,  can  scarcely  be  esti- 
mated ;  and  the  simplest  statement  of  what  we  believe  and  know  to  be  true, 
as  regards  the  superior  success  in  practice,  resulting  from  these  improve- 
ments in  the  Materia  Medica,  would  be  regarded  by  those  entirely  un- 
acquainted with  the  facts,  as  the  language  of  extravagant  enthusiasm. 
For  their  truth,  however,  we  can  but  appeal  to  the  final  tribunal,  universal 
experience;  and  it  is  partly  with  the  view  of  facilitating  this  appeal  by  can- 
did physicians,  that  this  volume  is  laid  before  the  public;  in  which,  we 
trust,  every  medical  reader  will  find  sufficient  information,  in  reference  to 
the  favorite  remedies  of  Eclectic  physicians,  to  enable  them  to  enjoy  in  prac- 
tice, what  we  deem  the  richest  fruits  of  modern  clinical  experience  ;  consti- 
tuting the  most  recent  and  important  practical  improvements  in  the  healing 
art." 
These  extracts  will  exhibit  that  Eclecticism  has  a  good  opinion  of  itself, 
what  ever  may  be  the  esteem  of  others,  a  trait  usual  to  reformers  •  yet  like 
many  other  movements  in  the  same  direction,  it  embraces  many  old  ideas 
and  old  agents  in  new  dresses  and  shapes,  commingled  with  some  originality. 
But  to  return  to  our  task.  The  work  is  divided  into  three  parts.  The 
first  130  pages,  are  devoted  to  a  succinct  description  of  the  natural  orders 
of  plants  contributing  to  the  Materia  Medica,  with  the  characters  of  the 
genera  ranged  under  each,  which  supercedes  the  necessity  of  noticing  them 
in  the  second  part  of  the  work. 
The  second  part,  devoted  to  the  eclectic  Materia  Medica,  embraces  840 
pages ;  and  describes  540distinct  articles,  both  vegetable  and  mineral.  Among 
the  latter,  are  chromic,  hydriodic,  hydrochloric,  nitric,  nitromuriatic,  phos- 
phoric and  sulphuric  acids,  alum,  muriate  of  ammonia,  salts  of  iron,  zinc, 
lead,  potassa,  soda,  etc.,  iodine,  bromine,  sulphur,  phosphorus,  and  many 
other  inorganic  bodies.    In  the  description  of  substances,  the  author  gene- 
