To offer to the medical profession a new treatise on Materia Medica and Therapeutics may appear to be a labor of supererogation. The medical literature of this country is already well provided with able and elaborate works on this subject. The learned and encyclopedic volumes of Stillé, based on the empirical method, and the modern and scientific work of H. C. Wood, based on the physiological method, leave almost nothing to be desired. Entertaining such a profound respect for the work of my American colleagues, it may well be inquired why I have ventured to add a new book to those already existing in this department of medical knowledge. A belief, which I trust will not be regarded as egotism, that I have earned the right to address the medical profession, has moved me to the preparation of this work. Several years a teacher of Materia Medica and Therapeutics, I have necessarily formed opinions as to the kind of information which should be contained in a treatise on this subject. As far as such a course of experiment is practicable, I have demonstrated in my lectures the actions of remedies on animals. I have conducted in my private laboratory many independent investigations, and have contributed in this way, I submit with diffidence, some original knowledge to the subject of therapeutics. The information thus acquired has been supplemented by twenty-two years of clinical experience as a practitioner of medicine. Under these circumstances, I am induced to believe that my professional brethren, and medical students, will hold that I am entitled to a hearing.

A volume on Materia Medica and Therapeutics should, in these days, present some new features of importance if it would worthily occupy a place alongside of the excellent works now accessible to American readers. An examination of this treatise will disclose the fact that it differs from other works in its scheme of classification, in the subjects discussed, and in the very practical character of the information. In the present state of our knowledge, it is impossible to make a classification free from defects, and I do not claim for mine that it is superior to others—only that its simplicity is a point in its favor. As respects the subjects treated of, it will be seen that the most elaborate section is that on aliment, and that remedies have been introduced not usually referred to by therapeutical writers. In the treatment of individual agents, I have, usually, adopted the description of the "United States Pharmacopoeia," and have omitted botanical and chemical details, unless they are necessary to elucidate physiological questions, or to facilitate intelligent prescription-writing. All pharmaceutical questions are most thoroughly handled in the "Dispensatory" of Wood and Bache, and this kind of knowledge is more the province of the druggist than of the physician.

In describing the physiological action of drugs, two methods may be pursued: to present in chronological order a summary of the opinions of various authorities on the subject in question; or, to condense in a connected description that view of the subject which seems to the author most consonant with all the facts. I have adopted the latter plan, from a conviction of its advantages for the student, and of its utility for the practitioner. The authorities which I have utilized in making up my opinions are placed at the end of each article, in order to avoid interruptions in the methodical descriptions.

As respects the therapeutical applications of remedies, I have, as far as practicable, based them on the physiological actions. Many empirical facts are, however, well founded in professional experience. Although convinced that the most certain acquisitions to therapeutical knowledge must come through the physiological method, I am equally clear that well-established empirical facts should not be omitted, even if they are not explicable by any of the known physiological properties of the remedies under discussion.

My best acknowledgments are due to John Chatto, Esq., the learned Librarian of the Royal College of Surgeons, London, for numerous courtesies extended to me during my visits to Lincoln's-Inn-Fields.

Roberts Bartholow.

120 West Seventh Street,         

Cincinnati, Ohio, June, 1876