Page:An introduction to pharmacognosy (1905).djvu/14

18 organs of the plant used, their gross and minute structure in the whole and powdered condition, and the chemistry of the constituents, especially of those which may be used in Therapeutics. Comprehensive treatments of this type have been carried out in such works as F. A. Flückiger, "Pharmakognosie des Pflanzenreiches; "A. Meyer, "Wissenschaftliche Drogenkunde;" Plancon et Collin, "Les drogues simples d'origine végétale," and other smaller manuals, such as those of Marmé, Moeller, Wigand, and Herail et Bonnet.

The subject-matter of Pharmacognosy may thus be divided into several fields. It may be considered mainly from the botanical point of view, constituting "Medical Botany;" it may be considered from the standpoint of the anatomist, "Histological or Anatomical Pharmacognosy," "Applied Plant Anatomy," or the entire interest of the study may be directed toward the investigation of the constituents, active and non-active, of the plant, in which case the study may be termed "Pharmaceutical Chemistry," meaning by this not the chemistry of pharmaceutic manufacture, but the chemistry of plant analysis, as outlined by Dragendorff and others. Finally there is a commercial side to the study of Pharmacognosy, which has to do with the methods of gathering, transporting, packing and sellng of remedial agents. This has been termed "Commercial Pharmacognosy."*

The study of Pharmacognosy as a separate branch did not begin until about the year 1825, when Martius began to give his series of lectures at the University of Erlangen. Even at the present time it is evident that Pharmacognosy is not a branch of science with well-defined limitations. It overlaps so many fields of inquiry and is a


 * See Essay by Tschirch of Berne in the Pharmaceutische Zeitung, 1881, No. 8, for a full discussion of the aims of modern Pharmacognosy. See also Flückiger, "The Principles of Pharmacognosy," translated by Powers.