and interesting study exercising the mind without fatiguing it, and stimulating the imagination without leading it astray, but also, because I cannot help wishing, although I know it is too much to expect of our actual medical men, that they should be careful observers of nature, yet in their younger years, before they have entered on their great career, I cannot help wishing that they had the habit of noticing all the qualities of plants which are so remarkable and powerful in their healing capacities." Then Mr. Gladstone narrated an anecdote, how the leaves of a plant healed the cut on his finger caused by an axe in wood-cutting.
"You will think it ludicrous, if I were to tell you a little anecdote of my own, which is of the very simplest character, and it is so small and so slight as almost to be contemptible, but still it illustrates what I mean. I have been given, as is pretty well-known, or at least, I have been given to the pursuit of wood-cutting. From a pure accident, I drew my fingers the other day along the edge of the axe which was lying close by, and which was tolerably sharp, and cut my finger. Upon searching about me I found I had no handkerchief available. I wanted to staunch my little wound. Not having a handkerchief, I got a leaf and put it on the wound. I am bound to say that this was not the result of botanical knowledge, but it was a purely empirical proceeding on the chance of the quality of the leaf. But there was a curious result. I knew the time nature occupied in healing a little breach of continuity, and when I put on the leaf, I assure you it is the fact, that it healed in exactly half the time. It is hardly worth mentioning such a thing as I say but I cannot help having the belief that there are good treasures in nature more than have heretofore been explored in every branch. To make medical students, before they have come to their great responsibilities, observers of the great qualities and capabilities of plants, I cannot help thinking that some good will be done."[1]
The importance of studying the subject of Indian medicinal plants has been again and again insisted on by several writers. It is too late in the day to discuss the necessity of such a study. The ease and cheapness with which these are procurable, the marvellous powers that are attributed to them in the cure of different maladies by natives of India, should induce us to investigate their properties and settle once for all their claims on our attention.
Dr. John Lindley was a renowned botanist. His views on the subject of vegetable drugs deserve careful consideration. In the preface to his work on Flora Medica, he wrote:—
"No one will be bold enough to assert that the physicians already possess the most powerful agents produced by the vegetable kingdom; for every year is bringing some new plants into notice for its energy, while others are
- ↑ Guy's Hospital Gazette for 29th March 1890, p. 72.
