Medicinal Plants and their Uses [antikvár]

Preface to the First EditionThe ever increasing use of medicinal plants that has occurred in recent times has stimulated the publication of a number of books about these plants. Many of them lack a critical approach, especially concerning the actions and uses of the plants. They repeat, without any serious checking, all the uses attributed to some of them in both scientific and poDular medicine.The author is not unaware of the difficulties occurring in the production of a serious book on medicinal plants, a book that must be popular but also scientific, and it is not without apprehension that he has begun work. He hopes that it will be of use to everybody including, to some extent, both physicians and pharmacists.The book is based on scientific considerations and provides a simple description of the more important medicinal plants. Hence it provides firstly coloured plates and a description of the plant that will enable its identification by those without a great knowledge of botany. The plates have been drawn and coloured under the direction of the author, using as models both the wild plants and also a careful selection of previously published illustrations, retouching where necessary. The written description is also as simple as possible. Purely botanical expressions are used only when they are easy to understand.The second paragraph indicates the parts of the plant usedin medicine.The public themselves should collect their medicinal plants; hence the places where each named plant is most often found have been carefully indicated. For plants that are rarely found wild but are easily cultivated, brief practical instructions for their cultivationprincipally in the kitchen garden for personal usehave been given. For commercial production special works on the subject must be consulted.Then are named the medicinally active constituents that are present in the plant together with the medicinal action that is produced. For many plants the active constituents have not yet been sufficiently studied and the author has been able to report only those researches that have been carried out to date. The author has intentionally given only those medicinal actions that have been established by serious trials or as a result of long experience, or again those that may be expected from the known active constituents.In the final paragraph of each monograph are described the method of usage of each drug and the preparations made from it There also the author has indicated only well tried uses or those that are justified by the chemistry of the plant in question. In this way he hopes to encourage the use of medicinal plants, for if some of them have been disparaged for not producing the described effects, it