Mag. for Sept. 1815.], from which
circumstance, some valuable lives have been sacrificed. It is therefore
high time that those persons who are engaged in the business of pharmacy
should be obliged to become so far acquainted with plants, as to be able
to distinguish at sight all such as are useful in diet or medicine, and
more particularly such as are of poisonous qualities.
The medical student has so many subjects for his consideration, that it
is not desirable he should have a greater number of vegetables to
consult than are necessary. And we cannot help lamenting the difficulty
he has to struggle with in consequence of the great difference of names
which the Pharmacopoeias of the present day exhibit. The London,
Edinburgh, and Dublin, in many instances, enforce the necessity of
learning a different term in each for the same thing, and none of which
are called by the same they were twenty years ago. Surely it would be
the means of forwarding the knowledge of drugs, if each could be
distinguished by one general term.
The candidate for medical knowledge, however, is not the only one who
has at times to regret this confusion of names. The Linnaean system is an
easy and delightful path to the knowledge of plants; but, like all other
human structures, it has its imperfections, and some of which have been
modified by judicious alterations.
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