Page:The medicinal plants of the Philippines (1901).djvu/15

 Father Blanco's "Flora"; but neither this work nor those of Clain or Santa Maria are useful to a physician, nor are they as accurately written as works of a scientific character should be. From time to time superficial articles have appeared in the Manila papers regarding the virtues of some plant or other and these books and articles comprise the whole literature on the subject up to this time.

Some physicians regard with small favor the therapeutic application of plants by the Filipino "herb-doctors" (curanderos) as being entirely empirical. This disparagement is unjustified because in all the most rational and scientific remedies that we make use of, the first step towards the final development of their relative position among remedies is due to empiricism which is founded on daily experience, on observation of results obtained in specific cases, facts that are handed down from father to son for generations. The scientific explanation is lacking, but those first ideas frequently owing their origin to chance, or, perhaps, to superstition, have often been based upon the observation of facts which, although fortuitous, are none the less positive.

Many of the plants mentioned in this book are official in the Pharmacopoeia of India and we see no reason why their use should be proscribed in the Philippines. Filipino physicians not only can but should employ many indigenous plants in their therapeutics; in many instances they would find them more useful than the exotics, which are not always fresh and are commonly reduced in strength by long keeping or damaged by some circumstance of voyage or climate. The price is another argument in favor of the use of native drugs. If the pharmacists would prepare extracts and keep on hand the crude drugs most in demand the public would gain a great advantage and the druggists be well repaid for their labor. Physicians and pharmacists will surely understand these advantages and when finally one considers that the patients generally prefer to be