value of knowledge thus gained, it is impossible to place too high an estimate, familiarizing, as it will, the embryo practitioner with remedies which are at hand in the remotest corners of our Indian empire, rendering him in a great measure independent of costly imported articles, and effecting a considerable annual saving to the State.
Amongst the returns received from India was one from Native Surgeon Moodeen Sheriff, of Madras, containing the vernacular names of indigenous plants and drugs, in twelve of the native languages of India, a work of immense labour, reflecting the greatest credit on the intelligence and industry of the compiler. This Catalogue, having been submitted to eminent Oriental scholars at home, and pronounced generally correct, it was resolved to append to the Pharmacopoeia. It was accordingly forwarded to Madras, for the purpose of being printed under Mr. Moodeen. Sheriff's superintendence. Unexpected circumstances, however, having arisen there to delay its publication, it has been deemed advisable, rather than to defer the publication of this work, to issue the Catalogue in a separate or supplementary volume.
In connexion with this branch of the subject, much valuable assistance has been rendered by Col. W. H. Sykes, M.P., Sir Walter Elliot, K.S.I., Dr. Fitzedward Hall, Mr. C. P. Brown, and Mr. G. H. K. Thwaites, of Ceylon.
The processes employed in the manufacture of chemical preparations have generally been omitted. To have inserted them would have tended materially to increase the size of the volume without any corresponding advantage, seeing that such articles could only be prepared at the Government Medical Stores, and perhaps in the laboratories of a few of the larger private firms in the Presidency towns, the needful appliances not existing elsewhere; and at these establishments the British Pharmacopoeia will of course be available, and the directions contained in that work should always be followed, excepting in those cases
