INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 
307 
pared by John Von Colin, and intended to embrace what was 
at that time known in relation to the Materia Medica of this 
country. 
In subsequent years, various additions were incidentally 
made to the store of knowledge by writers upon other sub- 
jects, as by Catesby in his Natural History of Carolina, and by 
Kalm, a Swedish gentleman, who travelled in North America 
about the middle of the last century, and published an Itine- 
rary on his return to Europe. 
The first work devoted expressly to the Materia Medica of 
North America was that of Dr. Shoepf, a German physician, 
who came with the Hessian troops to this country during the 
revolutionary war, and remained for some years after its ter- 
mination, travelling through the different States, and giving 
an especial attentioi to the study of plants. After returning 
to Europe, he published, at Erlangen, in Germany, a treatise 
in the Latin language, under the title of Materia Medica 
Americana, describing with scientific brevity a great number 
of our indigenous and naturalized plants, with the shortest 
possible account of their sensible properties, effects on the sys- 
tem, and medical uses. His work, however, can be of little 
use to the practitioner; for, though he has introduced every- 
thing into it with an indiscriminating appetite, his practical 
remarks are exceedingly vague, meagre, and unsatisfactory? 
and even the dose and proper mode of administration are, for 
the most part, withheld. 
A much more valuable practical essay was that of Doctor 
Benjamin Smith Barton, formerly Professor of Materia Me- 
dica, and subsequently of the Pratice of Medicine in this Uni- 
versity, whose various knowledge, zeal in the prosecution of 
natural history, and talents as a medical teacher are still fresh 
in the recollection of the profession. No one man in the 
United States, I presume, has contributed so much to the im- 
provement of our native Materia Medica. Not only did he 
diffuse by his writings and lectures the knowledge which he 
had accumulated by diligent research, but he breathed a spirit 
of investigation into the young men who heard him that pro- 
