INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 
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known. Besides those mentioned, there are many others 
which have been more or less investigated, and I have no 
doubt that some yet lie buried in the mass of our luxuriant 
vegetation, which will one day be brought to light, to the ho- 
nor of their discoverers, and the benefit of mankind. 
More than fifty years ago, the opinion was advanced by 
Shoepfthat, relying upon their native resources, the Ameri- 
cans /might dispense with the greater part if not the whole of 
the imported medicines. Even at the present time, however, 
with all the improvement which half a century has conferred 
upon our indigenous Materia Medica, I cannot coincide wholly 
in this sentiment. The present standard remedies are for the 
most part those which have stood the test of ages. They 
have been gathered from all quarters of the globe, have gone 
through every variety of trial, and have been sifted out from 
an immense mass of materials which had been for thousands of 
years in the course of accumulation. Happy the country which 
can boast itself the source of one of the more important of these 
remedies! It will hold a place in the memory of mankind so 
long as human infirmity shall exist, and, even with no other 
claims upon our sympathies, will rank among the valued 
spots of the earth, when countries which derive their import- 
ance from mere temporary causes shall have been forgotten. 
The whole human family will ever look to the Andes with 
interest and gratitude as the source of Peruvian bark, even 
though the political clouds which now overshadow her shall 
deepen into tenfold darkness, and her moral culture become 
as desolate as her own icy summits. It is not in the order of 
Providence to lavish on any one region a wealth equal to that 
scattered over the whole world beside. Not even the micro- 
scopic eye of patriotism could magnify our medicinal riches 
into competition with those of the entire globe. They are, 
however, very ample: and should political accident ever cut 
off our supply of drugs from abroad, though we should cer- 
tainly feel the want of them severely, we should nevertheless 
be able, in the products of our own soil, to find partial substi- 
tutes for almost all that we had lost. It becomes us most care- 
