of their virtues. He also describes the properties of different kinds of soil ; the nature of soils suit- able for the cultivation of various medicinal plants ; varieties of trees, cereals, oils, vegetables, roots, leaves, flowers and fruits ; properties of fresh and salt waters ; and gives, besides, a mine of useful information. The work is very elaborate, and is much valued by Indian practitioners. The order observed by this writer in arranging the drugs differs from that of his predecessors. He classifies the herbs into creepers, plants, trees and grasses, and describes how each part of them is to be used medicinally. This writer makes mention of about a hundred new medicines not to be met with in the works of his predecessors. The most important of them are : Kandura (Gyrarclinia heterophylla), Brahmadandi (Tricholapis glaberrima), Jinjhira (Triumfetta angulata), Rudanti (Cressa cretica), and Rudraksha (Elaeocarpus ganitrus).
Shodhala, who came after Narahari, wrote a treatise on Materia Medica bearing his name. He was a Gujarati Brahman by caste, his father being a physician named Nandana. His work is chiefly based on the "Dhanvantari Nighanta," to which he has added about eighty drugs as the
