PREFACE.

The object of the Author, in preparing the present work for the press,has been to supply the Medical Student with a class book on Materia

Medica, containing a faithful outline of this department ^of Medicine,which should embrace a concise account of tile most important modemdiscoveries in Natural History, Cliemisti'y, Physiology, and Therapeu-tics, in so far as they pertain to Pharmacology, and trea,t the subjectsin the order of their natural-historical relations. This order he hasfollowed for many years past in his Lectures, believing it to be tlifc most^convenient and, on the whole, the least objectionable mode of classifyingthe objects of Pharmacology : and he is glad to find that some $>f themost eminent professors (among whom he may mention his frleiidsDrs. Christison and Royle), follow a similar order in their lectures.Hitherto, however, no systematic work has been published in theEnglish language in which this method has been adopted 3 .

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It must be admitted, that, as the ultimate object of all our inquiriesinto the Materia Medica is the attainment of the knowledge of thephysiological effects and therapeutical uses of medicines, an arrange-ment founded on the effects and uses would be much more valuable tothe medical student than one based on properties only indirectly relatedto those for which the agents possessing them are employed. For it wouldenable him more readily to practise on general indications, and tosubstitute one remedy for another, belonging to the same class or order.

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« The Therapeutic Arrangement and Syllabus of Materia Medica , Ky J. JehnltoKfe,M.D., can hardly he regarded as constituting an exception to this statement. '