1825. Ansel W. Ives, M. D.--_Paris' Pharmacologia._ Third American edition. New York. 1830. Elisha Smith.--_The Botanic Physician, etc._ New York. (The title page proclaims him "president of the New York Association of Botanic Physicians.") 1838. C. S. Rafinesque.--_Medical Flora, etc._ Philadelphia. It was admitted into the _catalogus secundarius_ of the second edition of _The Pharmacopoeia of the United States of America_, and dropped into the dust-heap when the men who knew how to use it had passed away. EMPIRICAL APPLICATIONS. In dealing with authors who have gone to their reward, it has always seemed to me a duty to give their own words as far as possible. It brings them face to face with the reader, and is as if one brushed the moss from their gravestones, or perhaps, like Old Mortality, carved afresh a half-obliterated name. It is not the briefest way, but it has the merit of showing from whence the bricks came of which the edifice is built. I shall, then, cite the authorities in chronological order, and copiously enough to include essentials. _Cutler._--The roots dried and powdered are an excellent medicine in asthmatic cases, and often give relief when other means are ineffectual. It may be given with safety to children as well as to adults; to the former, in doses of four, five or six grains, and to the latter in doses of twenty grains and upwards. It is given in the fit, and repeated as the case may require. This knowledge is said to have been obtained from the Indians, who, it is likewise said, repeat the dose, after the paroxysm (_sic_) is gone off, several mornings, then miss as many, and repeat it again; thus continuing the medicine until the patient is perfectly recovered. It appears to be anti-spasmodic, and bids fair to be useful in many other disorders.--_Op. cit._, 1,409. _Schoepf._--I am obliged to cite at second hand, as I have never been able to find a copy of his _opus_. One may judge of its rarity, when a foreign advertisement by a German bookseller some years since failed to obtain it for me. Prof. W. P. C. Barton, _op. cit._, gives the gist of the Hessian surgeon's contribution in a style and manner as prim and orderly as that of Surgeon Schoepf himself on a dress parade. "Pharm. _Dracontii Radix._ Qual. _Acris_, _alliacea_, _nauseosa_. Vis. _Incidens_, _califaciens_, _expectorans_. Usus: _fol. contrita ad vulnera recentia et ulcera._ _Tussis consumptiva._ _Scorbutus et elii morbi radix._ _Ari officin. utilis._" "Incidens": Young reader, you must go back more than a century to understand the "pathology" that is wrapped up in that word like a mummy in its cerements. Don't laugh at _that_ "pathology," for some graceless graduate will laugh at yours in 1989. Note, however, in passing, that Schoepf says nothing, save _tussis_, that suggests the _vis anti-spasmodica_ of Cutler.