terminology of Botany, Chemistry, and Mineralogy, in the present time. And here may I be permitted to express my conviction that it is not altogether the blindness of partiality contracted towards intellectual pursuits upon which my mind has been so long engaged, that leads me to think that the original authors from whose stores I have drawn so liberally, will yet be found and acknowledged to have been well entitled to the confidence and reputation which they once enjoyed, and to which it is my wish that the present publication should, in some degree, restore them? It appears to me that, at certain periods of ancient times, the standard of professional excellence was such as would not easily be attained at the present day, with all our vaunted improvements in knowledge; and that many of those early masters of our art were distinguished for varied stores of erudition, an ardent love of truth, and an aptitude to detect the fallacies of error, such as few of us even now can lay claim to. The Father of Medicine held that, to become an eminent physician, it was necessary not only to be well acquainted with the structure of the human frame, but also to be skilled in logic, astronomy, and other sciences (De Aer. Aq., &c.); and of him it may be truly asserted, that he cultivated the art of medicine upon the strict principles of the inductive philosophy more than two thousand years before the world gave Lord Bacon the credit of introducing this method of philosophising. His devoted admirer and follower, Galen, was evidently the very _beau ideal_ of an accomplished physician; skilled in all the sciences of the day, in logic, mathematics, rhetoric, and the first philosophy; to all these ornamental branches of knowledge he added a minute acquaintance with anatomy and physiology; a practical experience with the phenomena of diseases as diversified by climate, situation, and the varied modes of life; a singular perseverance in collecting facts; and an extraordinary ability for generalizing them. The contemporaries of Celsus regarded him not only as well acquainted with medical literature, but also as being minutely skilled in every elegant and useful science which was known and cultivated at that remarkable period. And Rhases, the Arabian, requires of him who aspires to eminence in the medical profession, that, instead of wasting his earlier years in frequenting musical and drinking parties, he should have spent them in conning over the valuable records of ancient wisdom. “But the Sciolist,” says he, “who gives himself out for a proficient in the art, while he has scarcely even a smattering of learning, will never be deserving of much confidence, nor ever attain any great eminence in his profession. For it can never be that any individual, to whatever age he may reach, should be able to comprehend in his mind a subject so vast and diffuse, except by treading upon the footsteps of the ancients; since the boundaries of the science