Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure | Page 3

THE SECOND EDITION.

On its First Reading, a Bill drafted in Parliament meets with
acquiescence from the House on both sides mainly because its merits
and demerits are to be more deliberately questioned when it comes up
again in the future for a second closer Reading, Meanwhile, its faults
can be amended, and its omissions supplied: fresh clauses can be
introduced: and the whole scheme of the Bill can be better adapted to
the spirit of the House inferred from its first reception.
In somewhat similar fashion the Second Edition of "Herbal Simples" is
now submitted to a Parliament of readers with the belief that its
ultimate success, or failure of purpose, is to depend on its present
revised contents, and the amplified scope of its chapters.
The criticism which public journalists, not a few, thought proper to
pass on its First Edition have been attentively considered herein. It is
true their comments were in some cases so conflicting as to be difficult
of practical appliance. The fabled old man and his ass stand always in
traditional warning against futile attempts to satisfy inconsistent
objectors, or to carry into effect suggestions made by irreconcilable
censors. "Quot homines, tot [xiv] sententioe," is an adage signally
verified when a fresh venture is made on the waters of chartered
opinion. How shall the perplexed navigator steer his course when
monitors in office accuse him on the one hand of lax precision
throughout, and belaud him on the other for careful observance of
detail? Or how shall he trim his sails when a contemptuous
Standard-bearer, strangely uninformed on the point, ignores, as a leader
of any repute, "one Gerard," a former famous Captain of the Herbal
fleet? With the would-be Spectator's lament that Gerard's graphic
drawings are regrettedly wanting here, the author is fain to concur. He
feels that the absence of appropriate cuts to depict the various herbs is
quite a deficiency: but the hope is inspired that a still future Edition
may serve to supply this need. Certain botanical mistakes pointed out
with authority by the Pharmaceutical Journal have here been duly
corrected: and as many as fifty additional Simples will be found
described in the present Enlarged Edition. At the same time a higher
claim than hitherto made for the paramount importance of the whole
subject is now courageously advanced.

To all who accept as literal truth the Scriptural account of the Garden of
Eden it must be evident how intimately man's welfare from the first
was made to depend on his uses of trees and herbs. The labour of
earning his bread in the sweat of his brow by tilling the ground: and the
penalty of [xv] and thistles produced thereupon, were alike incurred by
Eve's disobedience in plucking the forbidden fruit: and a signified
possibility of man's eventful share in the tree of life, to "put forth his
hand, and eat, and live for ever," has been more than vaguely revealed.
So that with almost a sacred mission, and with an exalted motive of
supreme usefulness, this Manual of healing Herbs is published anew, to
reach, it is hoped, and to rescue many an ailing mortal.
Against its main principle an objection has been speciously raised,
which at first sight appears of subversive weight; though, when further
examined, it is found to be clearly fallacious. By an able but carping
critic it was alleged that the mere chemical analysis of old-fashioned
Herbal Simples makes their medicinal actions no less empirical than
before: and that a pedantic knowledge of their constituent parts,
invested with fine technical names, gives them no more scientific a
position than that which our fathers understood.
But, taking, for instance, the herb Rue, which was formerly brought
into Court to protect a and the Bench from gaol fever, and other
infectious disease; no one knew at the time by what particular virtue the
Rue could exercise this salutary power. But more recent research has
taught, that the essential oil contained in this, and other allied aromatic
herbs, such as Elecampane, [xvi] Rosemary, and Cinnamon, serves by
its germicidal principles (stearoptens, methyl-ethers, and camphors), to
extinguish bacterial life which underlies all contagion. In a parallel way
the antiseptic diffusible oils of Pine, Peppermint, and Thyme, are
likewise employed with marked success for inhalation into the lungs by
consumptive patients. Their volatile vapours reach remote parts of the
diseased air-passages, and heal by destroying the morbid germs which
perpetuate mischief therein. It need scarcely be said the very existence
of these causative microbes, much less any mode of cure by their
abolishment, was quite unknown to former Herbal Simplers.

Again, in past times a large number of our native, plants acquired a
well-deserved, but purely empirical celebrity, for curing scrofula and
scurvy. But later discovery has shown that each of these