Volume 1

Medical flora, or, Manual of the medical botany of the United States of North America : containing a selection of above 100 figures and descriptions of medical plants, with their names, qualities, properties, history, &c.: and notes or remarks on nearly 500 equivalent substitutes / by C. S. Rafinesque.

  • Rafinesque, C. S. (Constantine Samuel), 1783-1840.
Date:
1828-1830
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical flora, or, Manual of the medical botany of the United States of North America : containing a selection of above 100 figures and descriptions of medical plants, with their names, qualities, properties, history, &c.: and notes or remarks on nearly 500 equivalent substitutes / by C. S. Rafinesque. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    contributed to impart Medical and Botanical knowledge, tlirough the professional class. 14. This purpose has been aided by mime- reus publications of learned Physicians and Botanists, Medical Works, Pamphlets and Journals, Pharmacopeias, Dispensatories, In- augural Theses, &c. 15. Notwithstanding all these means, it is a positive and de{)lorab]e fact, that but few medi- cal practitioners, apply themselves to the Study of Botany, and therefore are deprived of the aid of comparative Medical Botany. 16. It is not less certain, but still more de- plorable that beyond (be immediate sphere of medical knowledge, the majority of the people are yet in prey to medical credulity, supersti- tion and delusions, in which they are confirmed by the repeated failures of Theorists, and the occasional success of Empirical Rivals. 17. Even in large cities and in the centre of medical light. Empirics are thriving, because they avail themselves of the resources aflbrded by active plants, often neglected or unknown to the regular practitioners. 18. it is not perhaps so well known that tbere are in this Age and in the United States, Ame- rican Marabouts who like the Marabouts of the wilds of Africa, attempt in some remote places, to cure diseases by charms, prayers, blowing, spitting, &.c. 19. It is therefore needful to spread still further correct medical knowledge; and the state of medical science is such in the United btates, as to require a greater diffusion of the