Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/73

INTRODUCTION. lxv Gangetic Flora describing plants of the United Provinces of Agra & Oudh by Mr. J. F. Duthie, Flora of Bombay by Dr. Theodore Cooke, Flora of the Central Provinces by Mr. Haines, Flora of Madras by Mr. Gamble, Pan jab Plants by Colonel Bamber, Flora Simlensis by the late General Collett, Plants of Baluchistan by Mr. Burkill, and Flora of Assam under preparation by Rai Bahadur Upendra Nath Kanjilal, will be of great help to those who are interested in the study of the medicinal plants of this country. Of the Indian States of India, the plants of Kashmir were worked out principally by Jacquemont and Royle; of Nepal by Wallich and recently by Mr. J. EL Burkill ; of Bhotan and Sikkim recently by Messrs. Burkill and Smith ; of Catch by Revd. Father Blatter ; of Mysore in the Gazetteer Volume of that principality ; and of Baroda and Kathiawad States by Mr. Jayakrishna Indrajit in Guzerati.

The outlook is not so gloomy now as it was more than twenty-five years ago, when I commenced the study of the subject. The Petit Laboratory established in Bombay was almost the first institution intended to work out the pharmacology of Indian drugs. For this purpose, the late Dr. K. N. Bahadur ji was appointed to its charge.

The Indian Medical Congress held in Calcutta in 1894 record- ed the following resolution : —

" That it be recommended to the consideration of the Government of India that an extended use of indigenous drugs is most desirable."

It was on this resolution that the Government of India appointed the Indigenous Drugs Committee which held their first meeting in Calcutta on January 3rd, 1896. In appointing this Committee, it was stated,

The points to which the Government of India desire more particularly to invite the attention of the Committee, with a view to their careful consideration, are the practicability, as well as the utility, of —

(a) encouraging the systematic cultivation of medicinal plants indigenous to India ;

(b) encouraging the increased use in Medical Depots of drugs of known therapeutic value ; and

(c) sanctioning the manufacture of stable preparations of certain drugs at the Depots.

Regarding the above the Government of India desire that the Committee