The work I did in the Philippines was preliminary, a preparation for the more extended study of the subject which I wished to make in Paris, where I went with my notes and collection. Unfortunately, upon leaving Manila, I confided the mounting and pressing of my plants to an inexperienced person who stupidly placed in the midst of them several succulent tubers which decomposed during the voyage and spoiled the other plants. At the same time I received in Paris an important collection of the vegetable drugs of the Philippines, sent by my friend the pharmacist, M. Rosedo Garcia, and destined for the World's Fair of 1889. I opened with great pleasure the wood and zinc box in which the collection came, anticipating that I should be able to carry out my plan of study and at the same time win for my friend, Garcia, a well-deserved premium. Imagine my disappointment upon finding that, by an unfortunate coincidence, his plants had arrived in the same condition as mine, having also been packed with tubers of ubi, gabi, etc., and several cocoanuts which had decomposed. Many times since then I have tried to obtain from Manila, through exchange or payment of money, a similar collection, but have been unable to secure a single leaf of the plants I so desired. If in the future I have the good fortune to procure any, I shall make a study of those at hand and publish the results. I herewith publish the results of my investigations and experiments in Manila, where, especially in the neighboring towns of San Mateo and San Miguel, I often had opportunities for using, with good results, the plants of which this volume treats. I may add that in spite of the limited means at my disposal in Manila and the short time left me by my regular occupations I was able to conduct a few laboratory experiments owing to which this work contains some personal observations reinforcing those quoted from medical literature. The flora of the Archipelago is known to-day through the works of Fathers Blanco, Llanos, Fernandez del Villar and Naves, and of the engineers Jordano, the brothers Vidal and Soler and others who have brought such honor to Spanish science, preparing the way for the study of the therapeutic and industrial applications of that wonderfully rich plant life with which our islands have been endowed. Their works help us to recognize the plants whose medicinal virtues are herein described and it is to them I owe the botanical descriptions in this treatise.