INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 
trums upon the public credulity as secrets obtained from the 
aborigines, and decrying, with all the zeal of the Thomsonians 
who have succeeded them, the poisonous minerals employed 
by the regular practitioners. But faith in the superior medi- 
cal knowledge of our savage tribes is disappearing with the 
tribes themselves. The simple truth seems to be, that many 
of the indigenous medical plants were known and ^employed, 
though very unskilfully, by the Indians, who communicated 
all they knew to the Europeans upon their settlement in the 
country. Whatever mystery may have, in some instances, 
been thrown over the subject, was a contrivance of imposture 
to conceal its real ignorance, or to magnify, through the effect 
of partial obscurity, its little grain of knowledge into some- 
thing worthy of notice. 
The wants of the country during the war of Independence, 
when the supply of drugs as well as other necessaries from 
abroad was very much impeded, stimulated attention to our 
indigenous resources, and led, if not to the discovery, at least 
to a fuller investigation and more extensive use of various na- 
tive medicines. 
Another circumstance which contributed very considerably 
to the cultivation of our native Materia Medica was the regu- 
lation formerly existing in this school, which required the 
publication of the inaugural dissertations of the graduates. A 
laudable regard to their reputation stimulated the exertions of 
the candidates, many of whom were induced to extend their 
researches into the yet but very partially explored region of 
our native medicines, and were rewarded by discoveries either 
of new substances, or of new and valuable properties in those 
already known. 
It is due to those who have contributed to bring a fresh soil 
of knowledge into cultivation, that their names and services 
should from time to time be revived in the memory of their 
successors, who are enjoying the fruits of their labors. It is, 
besides, a healthy excitant of our own exertions, thus to have 
placed before us the example of useful effort and its just re- 
vol. VI. — NO. iv. 39 
