Volume 1

Flora medica : containing coloured delineations of the various medicinal plants admitted into the London, Edinburgh and Dublin pharmacopoeias, with their natural history, botanical descriptions, medical and chemical properties, etc.; together with a concise introduction to botany, a copious glossary of botanical terms and a list of poisonous plants, etc. / edited by a member of the Royal College of Physicians, with the assistance of several eminent botanists.

  • George Spratt
Date:
1829-1830
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Flora medica : containing coloured delineations of the various medicinal plants admitted into the London, Edinburgh and Dublin pharmacopoeias, with their natural history, botanical descriptions, medical and chemical properties, etc.; together with a concise introduction to botany, a copious glossary of botanical terms and a list of poisonous plants, etc. / edited by a member of the Royal College of Physicians, with the assistance of several eminent botanists. 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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    INTRODUCTION. Botany, from the Greek Boravv] (a branch of which is to form the subject of the present work), in the more extensive signification of the term, is that science which treats of the elements, the immediate principles, the internal and external structure, the functions, the organs, and the similitudes and dissimilitudes of the multitude of beings which constitute the vegetable kingdom : in its more limited sense, it is that science which teaches us to compare, to describe, and to name plants ; and to class them according to the mutual affinities which are indicated by their external characters. Sir James Smith divides Botany into three branches—1st. the physiology of plants—2dly. the systematical arrangement and denomination of their several kinds, and 3dly. their economical or medical properties. Medical Botany is the application of the science to the purposes of medicine, or in other words, it is the botanical description and chemical analysis of those plants which have been found to possess medical properties, and which are now used in the healing art. From this definition of the term, it is obvious that a knowledge of vegetable chemistry is indispensable to the student, who would wish to make himself thoroughly acquainted with this important science; but as chemistry in all its branches, forms a neces- sary and distinct part of a medical education, we shall in the present work confine ourselves, for the most part, to the Descriptive Botany, and the sensible properties and action on the human frame of those plants, which are now generally received in the Pharmacopceias of the Colleges ; premising, at the same time, that,'when treating of plants, whose chemical analysis it may be important to give, we shall use the terms of that science with a presumption that the student is already acquainted with them. If we confine the term Medical Botany to the mere descrip- tion of a plant, with a detail of its properties and actions on b