abounds with professional herbalists. There are the Mnsheras in Central and Upper India, whose principal livelihood consists in the collection and sale of medicinal roots and herbs.*
In Bengal there are the Malis, Bagdis, Kaibartas, Pods, Chandals, Kaoras and Karangas, who principally carry on the trade in jungle products.! In Bombay, the Chadras, Bhils, and Gamtas are the herbalists. Now, these communities can prove of immense service to our medical practitioners in supplying medicinal plants. But as they are not trained in any university so as to be able to understand the Latin or scientific names of plants, the only way to secure their services lies with the medical practitioners in mastering the native names of plants. A great deal of time and trouble will be saved by thus giving the vernacular names of plants the importance they deserve.
It is, however, proper to add that too much confidence can not be placed in the vernacular nomenclature. In India, in the same district, one and the same name is applied to two or more different plants. And in some instances, names without any
excelsum should be looked to as likely to prove a valuable specific for malarious fevers, is pretty certain to be quite thrown away on a medical officer, who is not an expert in botany, for not a single native name for this tree is given either in the book itself or in the index; and though it might happen to grow in forests round his station, the committee put him in possession of no means of recognising it. * * * This very grave defect in the Pharmacopoeia, cannot be removed by the publication of a separate catalogue of native names, as proposed. In a second edition we hope to see not only a full vernacular index, but to find, following the botanical name of each substance, as complete a list as possible of the vernacular synonyms for it which are current in the three presidencies." (Calcutta Review for 1869, p. 201.)
All the above extracts will show that the importance of vernacular names of plants is fully recognised by those whose opinion is entitled to respect on this subject.
- An excellent account of this tribe is given by Mr. J. C. Nesfield, M. A., Inspector of Oudh Division, Lucknow, in the Calcutta Review for January, 1888. Mr. Nesfield writes : — " Indian physicans (Vaidya) and Indian
druggists (Pansari) are almost dependent as far as medicines are concerned, on what Musheras supply to them. * * It is much to the credit of Musheras that they have given a marked preference to the study of nature, and opened the door to the discovering of natural remedies. In fact, their knowledge of medicine is one of the chief characteristics of this tribe. * * They collect medicinal herbs for sale and receive grain or money for what they supply. * * * I know of no parallel to such knowledge as that possessed by Musheras within India itself." (Calcutta Review, pp. 40-41, for January, 1888.)
t Hunter's Statistical Account of Bengal, Vol. I, p. 27.
