Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/72

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lxiv INTRODUCTION

the raw products in his well-known work on the Punjab products. Dr. Burton Brown, the late Principal of the Lahore Medical College, was the reporter on the drugs of the Punjab. Asa chemist and a botanist Dr. Brown was well qualified to properly discharge his duties as a reporter. And up to this date, his report is the sole authentic guide to the drugs of that province.

Dr. Stewart, as Forest Officer, in his work on " Punjab Plants," noticed some of the medicinal plants of that province. He freely acknowledged the great help he derived from Dr. Brown in identifying many medicinal plants. Dr. Stewart's work is very valuable and, together with Dr. Brown's Report above referred to, is the only work mentioning some of the medicinal plants of the Punjab.

Of the medicinal plants and drugs of the United Provinces of: Agra and Oudh we know very little. Mr. Atkinson's work on the " Economic Products of the North- West Provinces " is the only work treating of the drugs of those provinces.

The medicinal plants and drugs of the Central Provinces and Rajputana have not been properly worked out. It is highly desirable that these provinces should receive, at the hands of botanists and medical men, that amount of attention which they deserve.

Thus it will be seen that, although there are many works on the medicinal plants and drugs of different provinces of India, yet a great deal remains to be done for the drugs and medicinal plants of Cashmere, Beluchistan, Sind, Punjab, United Provinces of Agra andOudh, Behar, Orissa, Assam, Central Provinces and Rajputana. Owing to the publication of the Pharmacographiea Indiea and Watt's " Dictionary of the Economic Products of India, " there is not the same difficulty now to work out the subject which the early laborers in this field of research experienced For, not only the Flora of British India projected by Hooker has been com- pleted, but Floras of most of the provinces of India have been in recent years prepared by some of the noted Indian botanists. Thus the Bengal Plants by Sir David Prain, the