Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
Jan.,  1886. 
Pharmaceutical  Study. 
45 
The  pharmacy  also  of  those  days  consisted,  for  the  most  part,  of  a  rude  system 
of  concoction  and  admixture  of  vegetable  and  other  substances,  with  now  and 
then  the  introduction  of  a  few  chemical  products,  and  the  application  of  what 
was  then  called  chemistry  for  the  improvement  of  processes.  But  it  was  long 
before  the  value  of  chemical  compounds  in  medicine  was  recognized,  and  a  hot 
contest  prevailed  for  some  time  between  those  who  advocated  their  use  and  the 
advocates  for  the  exclusive  use  of  galenical  preparations.  Ultimately,  however, 
the  use  of  mineral  medicines  and  compounds  of  definite  chemical  constitution 
became  established,  and  those  engaged  in  their  preparation  and  sale  assumed 
the  name  of  chemist  and  druggist.  Previously  this  class  had  grown  from 
grocers  or  dealers  in  spices  into  drug-grocers  or  druggists,  most  of  whom  still 
merely  dealt  in  the  raw  materia  medica,  while  first  (but  at  an  earlier  period) 
the  physician,  and  afterwards  the  apothecary  (half  physician  and  half  drug- 
gist), prepared  the  crude  drugs  for  use  in  medicine.  The  vegetable  materia 
medica,  being  subsequently  enriched  by  selections  and  additions,  and  further 
improved  by  the  exclusion  of  much  that  was  comparatively  worthless,  acquired 
increased  importance,  and  some  amount  of  botanical  knowledge  became  neces- 
sary for  the  identification  of  valuable  medicinal  plants  and  their  products. 
Botany  thus  became  an  adjunct  to  materia  medica,  and  its  cultivation  and  study 
in  connection  with  the  latter  added  a  charm  to  an  otherwise  dry  and  compara- 
tively uninteresting  subject.-  As  the  knowledge  and  importance  of  materia 
medica  extended,  a  more  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  structure  of  the  various 
parts  of  plants,  of  their  organs  and  of  the  functions  of  these,  was  looked  for 
in  those  who  were  considered  proficient  in  the  knowledge  of  the  vegetable 
materia  medica.  The  botanical  knowledge  required  in  this  study  is  partly 
general,  that  is  structural,  having  a  general  application  to  the  vegetable  kingdom ; 
and  it  is  partly  systematic,  or  special,  in  as  far  as  it  is  applied  alone  to  medicinal 
plants  and  such  as  are  allied  to  them.  Taken  in  that  sense,  however,  even  if 
we  attempted  to  confine  ourselves  within  such  a  limit,  the  subject  altogether 
would  be  a  tolerably  comprehensive  one;  but  wre  cannot  place  any  such  limit  to 
the  study  of  botany  even  for  pharmaceutical  purposes.  We  must  study  it  as  a 
whole,  although  it  may  be  chiefly  with  a  special  application. 
There  is  much  that  tends  to  reconcile  students  to  the  study  of  botany.  It  is 
the  study  of  some  of  the  most  beautiful  objects  of  nature,  which  although  in 
the  ordinary  sense  mute,  possess  an  eloquence  of  their  own,  and  never  fail  to 
appeal  to  the  hearts  of  those  who  are  willing  to  hold  converse  with  them. 
They  are  organized  beings  like  ourselves,  and  of  all  created  beings  they,  are, 
perhaps,  those  which  offer  the  greatest  facilities  for  deep  searching  investiga- 
tion into  the  mysterious  development  of  special  organisms  springing  either 
from  an  ingrafted  type,  or  from  a  minute  spark  of  vitality  which  may  have  lain 
dormant  for  years  in  an  apparently  inactive  seed.  There,  are  some  hundreds 
Of  thousands  of  forms  of  vegetation  proceeding  from  such  obscure  sources,  each 
having  distinct  and  definite  characters  of  its  own,  which  it  is  capable  of  further 
propagating  and  thus  maintaining  a  life  everlasting.  The  root,  the  stem,  the 
branches,  the  leaves,  the  flowers,  the  fruit,  the  seed.  Consider  the  arrangements 
of  all  these  parts;  how  extremely  elaborate  and  sometimes  fantastic  they  are. 
Such  arrangements  are  apparently  infinite,  but  they  are  all  subject  to  a  law  of 
nature,  namely,  that  of  symmetry,  which  is  one  of  the  elements  of  beauty. 
Among  the  inducements  to  pursue  the  examination  and  study  of  the  elemen- 
