PREFACE

TO THE FIRST EDITION.

X he unnecessary multiplication of books on the same sub-ject may be said, with propriety, to be a great evil: and there-fore, in undertaking the compilation of the following Work,which in its arrangement and plan coincides very closely withthe Edinburgh New Dispensatory, it has been my endeavour torender it, essentially so different from that, -wovk, as to preventit from being- placed under this reproach. But the plan ofthat volume, which is nearly the same as was originally adoptedby Dr. Lewis, with some little alterations, has become sofamiliar to the profession, and is so well adapted for the pur-poses of a Dispensatory, that I have thought it prudent not todeviate from it. I trust, however, that the alterations and theadditions which I have introduced, particularly in the historyof the different articles of the Materia Medica, will give alegitimate value to the London Dispensatory; and, without awish to detract from the high character of its precursor, willenable it to excite a new interest in the branch of the scienceof medicine of which it treats ; and especially to turn the atten-tion of the student towards Medical Botany, which has beenso unaccountably neglected, as to be almost regarded as un-necessary in the education of a physician. Indeed, althoughit has always been admitted that a correct knowledge of Ma-teria Medica and Pharmacy can be obtained by those onlywho have a previous knowledge of Botany and Chemistry, yetneither the Dispensatories nor the systems of Materia Medicapublished in this country, have described plants in a scientificmanner ; or noticed, in their descriptions, those characteristics