gend of the into "_L'homme vert, et
tranquil_."

Passing on finally to our own times at the close of the nineteenth
century, we are able now-a-days, as has been already said, to avail
ourselves of precise chemical research by apparatus far in advance
of the untutored herbalist's still. He prepared his medicaments and
his fragrant essences, merely as a mechanical art, and without
pretending to fathom their method of physical action. But the
skilled expert of to-day resolves his herbal simples into their
ultimate elements by exact analysis in the laboratory, and has
learnt to attach its proper medicinal virtue to each of these curative
principles. It has thus come about that Herbal Physic under
competent guidance, if pursued with intelligent care, is at length a
reliable science of fixed methods, and crowned with sure results.

Moreover, in this happy way is at last vindicated the infinite
superiority felt instinctively by our forefathers of home-grown
herbs over foreign and far-fetched drugs; a superiority long since
expressed by Ovid with classic felicity in the passage:--

"AEtas cui facimus _aurea_ nomen,
Fructibus arbuteis, et humus quas educat herbis
Fortunata fuit."--_Metamorphos., Lib. XV_.

"Happy the age, to which we moderns give
The name of 'golden,' when men chose to live
On woodland fruits; and for their medicines took
Herbs from the field, and simples from the brook."

or, as epitomised in the time-worn Latin adage:--

"Qui potest mederi _simplicibus_ frustra quaerit composita."

"If _simple_ herbs suffice to cure,
'Tis vain to compound drugs endure."

In the following pages our leading Herbal Simples [12] are
reviewed alphabetically; whilst, to ensure accuracy, the genus and
species of each plant are particularised.

Most of these herbs may be gathered fresh in their proper season
by persons who have acquired a knowledge of their parts, and who
live in districts where such plants are to be found growing; and to
other persons who inhabit towns, or who have no practical
acquaintance with Botany, great facilities are now given by our
principal druggists for obtaining from their stores concentrated
fresh juices of the chief herbal simples.

Again, certain preparations of plants used only for their specific
curative methods are to be got exclusively from the Homoeopathic
chemist, unless gathered at first hand. These, not being officinal,
fail to find a place