Page:Madras Journal of Literature and Science, series 1, volume 6 (1837).djvu/94

74 change: now, as the accompanying figure proves, we may even have good coloured representations, and, I believe, at an expense little if at all exceeding what similar ones would cost in England; say, for quarto sized coloured plates, about 30 or 35 Rupees the hundred, and executed in simple outline, in the manner of those I have already published in the Journal, for less than half the sum. We may now therefore fairly assume, that, under the double advantage of enjoying the fostering aid of the Supreme Government, and profiting by the flood of light which the unceasing labours of vegetable physiologists has of late years cast on the relationship existing between the natural affinities, botanically considered, and the active properties of plants, the time has arrived for making a rapid advance in this important department of medicine. With these collateral aids, little more is required than industry and judgment on the part of the compiler, to lay the foundation of a local medical botany as perfect as any yet extant. That sufficient materials for such a work are already in existence, I think I may with confidence assume, from having myself, with but little care, collected a considerable store, with the intention of undertaking the work on my own responsibility, should circumstances favourable to its prosecution occur. These it has not yet fallen to my lot to enjoy; and, hitherto, the only advantage I have reaped in return for a heavy expenditure, has been some experience of the manner in which, I think, it should be executed.

It only remains for me to add, as the deduction from the preceding observations, that I consider it next to impossible, without the aid of pictorial illustrations, to make any considerable progress in the knowledge of Indian Medical Botany, and that as these could now be supplied at very moderate cost, the subject seems to be one meriting the attention of government. For myself I am so thoroughly satisfied of the utility, or rather the absolute necessity, of plates, towards aiding the investigations of the naturalist, and more especially those of the tyro in natural history, that I consider it almost a duty to publish, so soon as circumstances will permit, a series of figures representing one or more species of each of the natural orders defined in my peninsular flora, with the view of facilitating the researches of those who (perhaps for the first time) have given their attention to that method of arrangement since the publication of that work. The principal obstacle to be sur-