er;" or that
the more general use of them has led to greater success in the practice
of the healing art. It is however evident, that we have much to regret
the almost total neglect of the study of medical botany by the younger
branches of the professors of physic, when we are credibly informed that
Cow-parsley has been administered for Hemlock, and Foxglove has been
substituted for Coltsfoot [Footnote: See the account of a dreadful
accident of this nature, in Gent. 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. Yet the teachers of this science, as
well as the students, have often to deprecate the unnecessary change in
names which has been made by many writers, though., in many cases, no
more reason appears for it than there generally would be to change
Christian and surnames of persons.

In the following section, I shall enumerate and describe those plants
which are contained in the lists of the three colleges; and afterwards a
separate list of those which, although they have been expunged, are
still sometimes used by medical men.

I shall also endeavour to give such descriptions as are concise, at the
same time sufficient for g