INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 
311 
pharmaceutical relations than previously existed. The parti- 
cular results have been consigned to the Journals, and cannot 
of course be mentioned here; but such of them as are of prac- 
tical value to the physician will be noticed under the heads of 
the several medicines in my lectures. We are indebted for 
them chiefly to graduates of the Philadelphia College of Phar- 
macy, which appears to have afforded to its students the same 
stimulus, in their particular pursuit, which was exerted by 
our own school, at a period of its history already alluded to, 
upon the candidates for its honors. 
In no part of the United States, perhaps, has our indigenous 
Materia Medica been practically cultivated to the same extent 
as in New England, and particularly in Connecticut. Several 
medicines of native origin are, I am told, habitually employed 
by the regular practitioners which are little if at all used else- 
where; and Professors Ives and Tully, who have succes- 
sively lectured on Materia Medica in the Medical Depart- 
ment of Yale College, are said to have offered to the student 
a minuteness and a variety of information upon the physiolo- 
gical effects and therapeutical uses of those medicines, which 
would be in vain sought for in'books. It is to be hoped that 
the present professor may some time consent to share with 
his medical brethren in general his peculiar knowledge; for it 
must be confessed that there is nothing in which we are more 
deficient than in accuracy and precision of acquaintance with 
the virtues of most of our indigenous medicines. 
It is worthy of mention, in connexion with this subject, 
that particular attention has been paid to the collection and 
preparation of indigenous plants by the Shakers, who furnish, 
indeed, to the shops most of their supplies, and generally in 
the best condition. An extensive business of this kind is car- 
ried on by the Shakers of Lebanon in New York, and, dur- 
ing a recent journey in Ohio, I found that at their settlement 
in that State they were cultivating the same source of profit. 
Our view has hitherto been confined to the state of Materia 
Medica in relation to the objects of that science furnished ex- 
clusively by this country; we are now to consider the history 
