Introduction and Background

Che B. H. Hill Library North Carolina State Wuiversity From the Library of Professor Monroe Evans Gardner 1895-1975 aA Cn CO THIS BOOK MUST NOT BE TAKEN FROM THE LIBRARY BUILDING. 20M/2-78 AMERICAN MEDICAL BOTANY, BEING A COLLECTION OF THE NATIVE MEDICINAL PLAN’ OF THE UNITED STATES, CONTAINING THEIR BOTANICAL HISTORY AND CHEMICAL ANALYSIS, AND PROPERTIES AND USES IN MEDICINE, DIET AND THE ARTS, witt COLOURED ENGRAVINGS, BY JACOB BIGELOW, M. D. RUMFORD PROFESSOR AND LECTURER ON MATERTA MEDICA AND BOTANY IN WARVARD UNIVERSITY. you. I. BOSTON: PUBLISHED RY CUMMINGS AND WILLIARD, AT TI BOSTON BooksToRK. NO. 1, CORNHILL, het MILLTARD AND METCALF, UNIVERSITY PRESS. 18t7. District of Massachusetis, to wit District Clerk's office. Be it remembered, that on the eighteenth day of October, A. D. 1817, and in the forty second year of the independence of the United States of Ameri- ca, Jacob Bigelow, M.D. of the said district, has deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as author, in the words follow- ing, vize “American Medical Botany, being a collection of the native medicinal plants ofthe United States containing their botanical history and chemical , and properties and uses in medicine, diet and the arts, with coloured gtavings. By Jacon Brorzow, M.D, Rumford. Professor, and Lecturer on Materia Medica and Botany in Harvard U Vol. In conformity to the act of the congress of the United States, entitled “ An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned ;” and also to an act, entitled, “ An act supplemen- tary to an act, entitled, An act for the encouragement of learning, by secur- ing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of stich copies, during the times therein mentioned, and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other prints. INO. W. DAVIS, Clerk of the district of Massachusetts. ‘TO THE REY. JOHN THORNTON KIRKLAND, D.D. LL.D. PRESIDENT OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY IN CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS. DEAR SIR, Tue present flourishing state of the Institution, over which you preside, cannot be ascribed to any more effi- cient cause, than to the zeal and ability, with which you have watched over its interests. Those, who in any measure derive from this Institution their opportunities of being useful, may with justice direct their first acknowledgments to you. Being confident, that no attempt for the promotion of useful knowledge will be regarded by you with indiffer- ence, I am happy in offering to you, in the present vol- ume, a testimony of my respect and esteem. J.B. Boston, October, 1817. PREFACE, Have long meditated the commencement ef a work on the medicinal vegetables of the United States, and feeling myself obligated for its completion, by the instructions from the Univer- sity in which I have the honor to hold a professor- ship; it may be proper to make at the outset some general statements of the motives and objects of such a publication, The Materia Medica, comprising the great body of medicinal agents now in use in the hands of physicians, cannot be said to need an increase in the number of its articles. It is already in- cumbered with many superfluous drugs; even its active substances are more numerous than can be of use to any one physician, so that it seems quite as susceptible of benefit from reduction as from augmentation in the number of its materials, Under these circumstances, the introduction of new medicines can only be authorized, where Vi PREFACE. from the peculiarity of their powers, or the facili- ty of their acquisition, they are calculated to take the place of others previously in use. Of our present stock of medicinal agents, col- lected from various parts of the globe, a few ap- pear to be wnique in their powers, and could not in the present state of our knowledge, be super- seded by other substances. A number more pos- sess active properties, yet of a kind, for which sub- stitutes might be found among the native produc- tions of almost every country into which they are imported. There are others which possess little activity or value, but which, from a sort of fashion, are still articles of commerce and consumption. In the management of diseases, the physician requires instruments of determinate power, on the operation of whieh, he may build definite expee- tations. Many such are already in his hands. Yet when we consider how small a portion of the yegetable kingdom has been medically examined, there can be little doubt that a vast number of active substances, many perhaps of specific efli- cacy, remain for future inquirers to discover. In this respect, every successive age is making acquisitions. But a century or two ago, the civ- ilized world were unacquainted with the proper- tics of ipecacuanha, of jalap, and the Peruyian PREFACE, Vib bark, The powers of digitalis in certain diseas- es are of very recent observation, At the pres- ent day, we are speculating on the probable com- position of a yegetable medicine, which cures the gout. Medicinal substances frequently owe their first introduction to accident. Many have been at first brought up as antidotes for the poison of serpents, as remedies for syphilis, or as specifies against imaginary diseases. Previously to this, they were neglected as useless, or avoided as dangerous. It is a subject of some curiosity to consider, if the knowledge of the present Materia Medica were by any means to be lost, how many of the same articles would again rise into notice and use. Doubtless a variety of new substances would de- velop unexpected powers, while perhaps the pop- py would be shunned as a deleterious plant, and the cinchona might grow unmolested upon the mountains of Quito. . It is the policy of every country to convert as far as possible its own productions to use, as a mean of multiplying its resources, and diminish- ing its tribute to foreigners. The plants of the United States are various in their character in proprotion to the extent of latitudes and climates, gthose which which our country embraces. Amo viii PREFACE. have been medicinally investigated, are many of useful properties and decided efficacy. Several de- partments of the Materia Medica may be amply supplied from our own forests and meadows, al- though there are others, for which we must as yet depend on foreign countries. We have yet to di cover our anodynes and our emetics, although we abound in bitters, astringents, aromatics and demulcents. In the present state of our knowl- edge we could not well dispense with opium and ipicacuanha, yet a great number of foreign drugs, such as gentian, columbo, chamomile, kino, cat- echu, casearilla, canella, Se. for which we pay a large annual tax to other countries, might in all probability be superceded by the indigenous products of our own. It is certainly better that our own country people should have the benefit of collecting such articles, than that we should pay for them to the Moors of Africa, or the In- dians of Brazil. Independent of the frauds of adulteration, which may be practised by savages upon drugs, whose origin is hardly Known to Kuropeaus, the embarrassments occasioned by the chances of war and commercial restrictions, form serious objec- tions to an exclusive dependence on foreign med- icines. It is but a few years since some circum- PREFACE, ix stances of this sort occasioned a sudden and euor- mous rise in the price of opium, and a general in- quiry, what could be substituted for opium when the usual supplies should have failed. In a work like the present, although we can- not hope to supply all the desiderata of an indi- genous Materia Medica; yet it will be satisfacto- ry to haye done something towards an inves tion of the real properties of our most interesting plants, and to have facilitated a knowledge of them in those, to whom they may be useful. In a pur- suit of this kind, the botanist has views even be- yond the physician, ‘Yo him it is important not only to know what plants have properties, that are eminently useful, but also to know, what are the properties and uses of all the plants which sur- round him. In proportion as inquiries of this sort are pursued, the natural resources of a coun- try become developed, and its natural disadyanta- ges compensated, We are told that in China ey- ery plant is applied to some yaluable purpose, and there is searcely a weed that has not its de- terminate use.* A learned author} observes, that “no writer whatever has rendered the natural productions of the happiest and most luxuriant climate of the globe, half so interesting or instraec- * Macartney’s Emb: vol, ii. chap. 1 + Sir J, EB. Smith, x PREFACE, tive, as Linneeus has made those of his own north- ern country.” Under the title of American Menicat Bora- ny, it is my intention to offer to the public a se- ries of coloured engravings of those native plants, which possess properties deserving the attention. of medical practitioners. ‘The plan will likewise include yegetables of particular utility in diet and the arts; also poisonous plants which must be known, that they may be avoided. In making the selection, I have endeavoured to be guided by positive evidence of important qualities, and not by the insuflicient testimony of popular report. In treating of each plant, its botanical history will he given ; the result of such chemical examina- tions as I have been able to make of its constitu- ent parts, and lastly its medical history. The botanical account will be found more diffuse than is necessary for exclusive botanists. ‘The chem- ical inquiries are made chiefly with a view to the pharmaceutical preparations of each plant, or to interesting principles it may contain. Its medie- al history will contain such facts, relative to its operation on the human system, as are known to me from my own observation, or the evidence of those, who are qualified to form correct opinions on the subject. PREFACE. xi Tam by no means ambitious to excite an in- terest in the subjects of this work, by exaggerated accounts of virtues which do not belong to them, Much harm has been in medicine, by the partial representations of those, who, having a point to prove, have suppressed their unsuccessful experi- ments, and brought into view none but favorable facts. If, from a desire of avoiding error, I have not always been able to establish fully the charac- ter of a native vegetable, it will be recollected that many foreign drugs, which have been for centuries in use, haye still an unsettled reputation as to their powers and modes of operating. The figures of the present volume have been engraved and coloured from original drawings, made principally by myself. Dissections of the flower and fruit have been added. to cach for the use of botanical students. ‘The subsequent por- tions of the work will be issued as rapidly as_is consistent with their faithful execution, At the end will be added an appendix or sup- plement, containing such facts relative to the plants already published, as may haye come to light since their publication. " Yeteve Mine niiom AMERICAN MEDICAL BOTANY. DATURA STRAMONIUM. Thorn Apple. PLATE F. Tus Datura Stramonium is a wandering an- nual plant, which follows the progress of culti- yation, and is rarely found remote from the vi- cinity of dwellings. It occurs in every part of the Atlantic coast from Maine to the Floridas, and is also found in the Western States in the neighbourhood of settlements. Tts favorite haunts are the borders of ficlds and roadsides, among rubbish and in neglected spots of rich ground. It emigrates with great facility, and often springs up in the ballast of ships, and in earth carried from one country to another, This cireumstance in Europe has undeservedly giyen rise to