308 
INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 
duced a rich result of discovery. The work referred to lays 
no claim to the consideration of a regular treatise, being mo- 
destly entitled " Collections for an Essay towards the Materia 
Medica of the United States/' and consisting of materials 
partly gathered from previous writers, partly accruing from 
his own inquiries and observation, and thrown together with- 
out any great attempt at elaboration. His aim appears to have 
been to collect into a single repository, of convenient access, 
facts which might otherwise have been lost, or, from their 
scattered condition, have remained inaccessible to ordinary 
research. His book has been a store house of materials for 
subsequent authors, and will probably continue to be at the 
fountain head of inquiry; as it contains all that an investiga- 
tion pushed into the times beyond it would be likely to dis- 
cover. It consists of two parts, the first of which was pub- 
lished in 1798, and afterwards with some additions in 1801, 
while the second part did not make its appearance till 1804. 
It would be impossible for me, consistently with my pre- 
sent design, to mention individually the numerous inaugural 
essays and monographs published in the Journals, in relation 
to particular indigenous medicines. Many of these have con- 
siderable merit, and some have been the means of introducing 
to general notice valuable remedies which have since retained 
a place in the public esteem. It was soon after the appear- 
ance of Dr. Barton's Collections, that the attention of students 
of medicine appears to have been most strongly directed into 
this channel; for in the year 1802, not less than six Theses on 
the subject of our medicinal plants were published by alumni 
of this school, and that out of a class of graduates not exceed- 
ing twenty in number. 
I do not know that it is strictly in keeping with the plan of 
this lecture to call attention particularly to the botanical 
works which appeared about this time and subsequently, and 
which, though they did not make the medicinal virtues of 
plants an especial object, nevertheless contain scattered no- 
tices in relation to them, of some value to the physician and 
medical writer. It may, perhaps, be sufficient to mention the 
