royle's manual of materia medica, etc. 
265 
in excellence any in similar treatises, are not among its 
least merits. The arrangement adopted by Dr. Royle is a 
botanical one. The great reformer of botany, Linnaeus, 
made an effort to arrange the Materia Medica upon this 
plan, and his essay was conclusive as to its feasibility. Simi- 
lar ideas had been entertained, as for instance by Camera- 
rius, but the knowledge was wanting for its extensive de- 
velopment. The natural system of Jussieu presented an 
admirable opportunity of engrafting upon it the most na- 
tural classification of vegetable substances, employed in me- 
dicine, and of exhibiting, that similarity of properties and 
virtues are so closely allied to structure and organization 
as to be inseparable. The eminent expounder of this sys- 
tem, De Candolle, has fully acomplished the task, and if not 
the originator of the arrangement, most undoubtedly pos- 
sesses the merit of carrying it out, with so much perspicuity 
and convincing detail, as to have established its superiority. 
His " Essay on the Medical Properties of Plants," is only 
one of many philosophic works, equally stamped with truth 
and reason, emanating from his pen ; and every pharmaco- 
logist should be familiar with its principles. In this system 
chemistry is the handmaid of botany, and advanced as the 
former branch has been since the year 1816, when the 
second edition of the essay was published, the light of ex- 
periment and research have only further confirmed his la- 
bours. This the author lived to see and to enjoy. Let us 
take one or two examples as illustrating the statement that 
has been made. The Solanese of Jussieu, or Lenridse, Lin., 
presented a marked resemblance in botanical characters 
and habit, so as to lead to their being grouped in a family ; 
the family likeness being strong, the family traits were 
equally striking, as they possessed deleterious properties. 
This was as far as De Candolle could trace the resemblance; 
but chemistry has exhibited that the bond is further cement- 
ed, by the discovery of an alkaloid principle in most of the 
articles, which discovery was foreshadowed to Vauquelin 
25 
