I HAVE thus, Gentlemen, endeavored to present you with a specimen, or rather rude outline, of an Essay towards a Materia Medica of the UnitedStates. My object has been a collection of facts. I could have wished for more leisure to have pursued the subject: but that leisure I do not possess. I hope, however, that with all its imperfections, I have presented you with a sketch which will not prove unacceptable to you. I have opened a path which deserves to be trod by you all.

THE man who discovers one valuable new medicine is a more important benefactor to his species than Alexander, Cæsar, or an hundred other conquerors. Even his glory, in the estimation of a truly civilized age, will be greater, and more lasting, than that of these admired ravagers of the world. I will venture to go farther. All the splendid discoveries of Newton are not of so much real utility to the world as the discovery of the Peruvian bark, or of the powers of opium and mercury in the cure of certain diseases. If the distance of time, or the darkness of history, did not prevent us from ascertaining who first discovered the properties of the Poppy, that "sweet oblivious antidote" for alleviating pain, and for soothing, while the memory remains, those rooted sorrows which disturb our happiness; if we could tell who first discovered the mighty strength of Mercury in strangling the hydra

of pleasures and of generation; if we could even ascertain who was the native of Peru, that first experienced and revealed to his countrymen the powers of the Bark in curing intermittent fevers; would not the civilized nations of mankind, with one accord, concur in erecting durable monuments of granite and of brass to such benefactors of the species? Would not even the savage, who wants not a sense of benefits conferred upon him, be seen to form the tumulus of stones, or to raise the green sod, the only monuments his humble condition would admit of his erecting? And may we not yet look for the discovery of medicines as important to mankind as opium, the bark, and mercury?

For this purpose, the discovery of new and valuable medicines, your situation, Gentlemen, (I address myself at present, more especially to the younger part of my audience); for this purpose, your situation is peculiarly happy. In the pursuit of one of the most dignified and most useful of all the sciences, you are placed in an extensive country, the productions of which have never been investigated with accuracy, or with zeal. From this school, I will venture to call it the punctum saliens of the science of our country, you are to spread yourselves over the happiest and one of the fairest portions of the world. In whatever part of this vast continent you may be placed, you will find an abun

dant field of new and interesting objects to reap in. The volume of nature lies before you: it has hardly yet been opened: it has never been perused. But by your assistance, the knowledge of the natural productions of our country may be greatly extended, and travellers shall then no longer upbraid us with an utter ignorance of the treasures which an allbenevolent Providence has so largely bestowed upon us. May I not flatter myself that among the number of those whom I am now addressing, there are some of you for whom medical discoveries of importance are reserved? discoveries which would add a ustre to your names, whilst they would ensure to you that which is much more to be desired, in this mixed scene of affairs, an happiness that is imbosomed in the happiness of one's country, and the world.

APPENDIX,

CONTAINING

ILLUSTRATIONS AND ADDITIONS.

PAGE

AGE 14. "I am well acquainted with a physician," &c. The room in which the flowers of the Magnolia glauca produced the effects here mentioned, was not a small one, and was well aired. It was in the month of June.

I ought to have observed, under the head of Tonics, that the Menyanthes trifoliata, or Marsh-Trefoil and Bog-bean of the English, is a native of our country. It grows spontaneously in Pennsylvania. This is certainly an active plant, and if we can depend upon the half of what has been said of its virtues, it deserves a place in the Pharmacopoeia of every country.

Page 18. Dr. Samuel Cooper. See his valuable Inaugural Dissertation on the Properties and Effects of the Datura Stramonium, &c. Philadelphia: 1797.

Page 18. Cicuta venenosa. In Virginia, this plant is called Wild-Carrot, Wild-Parsnip, Fever-Root, and Mock-Eel-root. See Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. Vol. iii. No. xxix.

Page 19. Kalmia latifolia. In South-Carolina, this beautiful shrub is called "Calico-Tree."

Pages 19, 20. "A decoction of the Andromeda Mariana has been found useful as a wash, in a disagreeable ulceration of the feet, which is not uncommon among the slaves, &c. in the southern states." This complaint is very common, particularly among the negroes and the poorer sort of white people, in Carolina, Georgia, &c. It is called "Toe-Itch and Ground-Itch." It is a kind of ulcerous excoriation between the toes, sometimes extending as high as the instep, and is attended with most intolerable itching. It is probably, in a great measure, the consequence of inattention to cleanliness. Is it occasioned by particular insects? Some persons, with whom I have conversed on the subject, are of opinion, that it is owing to the great warmth of the waters to the southward, in which the inhabitants are accustomed to wade a great deal. The disease is sometimes seen in Pennsylvania. Besides the Andromeda Mariana, or Broad-leaved Moor-wort, a decoction of the leaves of the Kalmia latifolia is used for the cure of this complaint. The decoction of the leaves of both these plants is used. They are both called "Wicke" to the southward.

Page 21. "I knew a woman," &c. She was a stout, and seemingly very hearty, woman. She informed me, that a lady of her acquaintance was affected in the same way by this tea. I could not learn whether the flowers of the Sassafras produced a similar effect.

Page 24. Rhus, or Sumac. "It is said that the bark of one species (but I cannot tell you what species) has been found useful in intermittents." Perhaps it is the