“It will not be expected that we should here give a history of this ancient practice, or draw a parallel betwixt the success of former physicians and those of modern times:  all that concerns us to remark is, that the ancients were infinitely more indebted to the vegetable kingdom for the materials of their art than the moderns.  Not so well acquainted with the oeconomy of nature, which teaches us that plants were chiefly destined for the food of various animals, they sought in every herb some latent healing virtue, and frequently endeavoured to make up the want of efficacy in one by the combination of numbers:  hence the extreme length of their farraginous prescriptions.  More enlightened ideas of the operations of medicine have taught the moderns greater simplicity and conciseness in practice.  Perhaps there is a danger that this simplicity may be carried to far, and become finally detrimental to the practice.”

The above is quoted from the Preface to a Catalogue of Medicinal Plants published by my predecessor in 1783:  and it may be observed, that the medical student has, at the present season, a still less number of plants to store up in memory, owing, probably, to the great advances that chemistry has made in the mean time, through which mineral articles in many instances have superseded those of the vegetable kingdom.  But, nevertheless, as Dr. Woodville has justly observed, “it would be difficult to show that this preference is supported by any conclusive reasoning drawn from a comparative superiority of the former;” or that the more general use of them has led to greater success in the practice of the healing art.  It is however evident, that we have much to regret the almost total neglect of the study of medical botany by the younger branches of the professors of physic, when we are credibly informed that Cow-parsley has been administered for Hemlock, and Foxglove has been substituted for Coltsfoot [Footnote:  See the account of a dreadful accident of this nature, in Gent.  Mag. for Sept. 1815.], from which circumstance, some valuable lives have been sacrificed.  It is therefore high time that those persons who are engaged in the business of pharmacy should be obliged to become so far acquainted with plants, as to be able to distinguish at sight all such as are useful in diet or medicine, and more particularly such as are of poisonous qualities.

The medical student has so many subjects for his consideration, that it is not desirable he should have a greater number of vegetables to consult than are necessary.  And we cannot help lamenting the difficulty he has to struggle with in consequence of the great difference of names which the Pharmacopoeias of the present day exhibit.  The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, in many instances, enforce the necessity of learning a different term in each for the same thing, and none of which are called by the same they were twenty years ago.  Surely it would be the means of forwarding the knowledge of drugs, if each could be distinguished by one general term.