Lexicon of Medical Equivalents.

Or Alphabetical Enumeration of all the Medical Plants of the United States omitted in the 100 selected Articles, with additions and corrections, &c.

  • 1. This second part of the present work could easily have been enlarged to a size equal to the first. But it must be limited to a mere catalogue of additional medical plants, with a short account of their uses and properties.
  • 2. Some of the mentioned plants are as valuable as many of the selected ones, and of well ascertained properties; upon these, it will be needful to dwell a little longer. Such are the genera Abies, Iris, Angelica, Sinapis, Croton, Mentha, Quercus, Esculus, Hieracium, Nicotiana, Viburnum, Laurus, Lactuca, Morus, Prunus, Phytolaca, Liatris, Pinus, Sambucus, and many more.
  • 3. No botanical account can here be given; the botanical names will enable to consult books on the subject. When the plants are undescribed in Michaux, Pursh, Nuttall, Elliott, Torrey, Eaton, &c. they will be described in the botanical supplement.
  • 4. The medical indications are taken from all sources, personal observations and communications, or from authors, chiefly from Schoepf, Cutler, Thatcher, Mease, Bigelow, Smith, Henry, Williams, Josselyn, Castiglione, Kalm, Ives, the two Bartons, Drayton, Gambold, Elliott, Coxe, Zollickoffer, Eberle, &c. Thus including the result of the whole actual knowledge on our medical plants.
  • 5. When medical plants are mere equivalents of each other, they may be mentioned as such. But even such equivalents may have some peculiar separate property. The whole will evince how ample is our vegetable Materia Medica, and how adequate to all needful purposes.
  • 6. Many economical uses will be added, as well as several useful or remarkable facts worthy of notice. Most of the vulgar names will also be given.

  • Medical Flora, or Manual of the Medical Botany of the United States of North America, Vol. 2, 1830, was written by C. S. Rafinesque.