Volume 1

Medical botany : containing systematic and general descriptions, with plates, of all the medicinal plants, indigenous and exotic, comprehended in the catalogues of the Materia Medica, as published by the Royal Colleges of Physicians of London and Edinburgh: accompanied with circumstantial detail of their medicinal effects, and of the diseases in which they have been most successfully employed / by William Woodville, M.D. of the Royal College of Physicians, London.

  • Woodville, William, 1752-1805.
Date:
1790-1793
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical botany : containing systematic and general descriptions, with plates, of all the medicinal plants, indigenous and exotic, comprehended in the catalogues of the Materia Medica, as published by the Royal Colleges of Physicians of London and Edinburgh: accompanied with circumstantial detail of their medicinal effects, and of the diseases in which they have been most successfully employed / by William Woodville, M.D. of the Royal College of Physicians, London. 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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    PREFACE. IN the catalogues of the Materia Medica, the productions of the animal and mineral kingdoms bear a fmall proportion to thofe of the vegetable. Though it muft be acknowledged that for fome time paft the medicinal ufes of vegetable fimples have been lefs regarded by phyficians than they were formerly, which probably may be afcribed to the fucceffive difcoveries and improvements in chemiftry; it would however be difficult to ffiew that this preference is fupported by any conclufive reafoning drawn from a comparative fuperiority of Chemicals over Galenicals, or that the more general ufe of the former has actually led to a more fuccefsful practice. Although what may be called the herbaceous part of the Materia Medica, as now received in the Britifh pharmacopoeias, comprifes but a very inconfiderable portion of the vegetable world; yet limited as it now is, few medicinal practitioners have a diftinCt botanical knowledge of the individual plants of which it is compofed, though generally well acquainted with their effeCts and pharmaceutical ufes. But the practitioner, who is unable to diftinguifh thofe plants wffiich he prefcribes, is not only fubjeCted to the impofitions of the ignorant and fraudulent, but muft feel a diffiatisfaCtion which the inquifitive and philofophic mind will be anxious to remove, and to fuch it is prefumed Medical Botany, by collecting and fupplying the information neceffary on this fubjeCt, will be found an acceptable and ufeful work; the profeffed defign of which is not only to enable the a