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The sedative powers of the Lactuca Sativa, or Lettuce,^[17] were known also in the earliest times; among the fables of antiquity, we read that after the death of Adonis, Venus threw herself on a bed of lettuces, to lull her grief, and repress her desires. The sea onion or Squill, was administered in cases of dropsy by the Egyptians, under the mystic title of the Eye of Typhon. The practices of incision and scarification were employed in the camp of the Greeks before Troy, and the application of spirit to wounds was also understood, for we find the experienced Nestor applying a cataplasm, composed of cheese, onion, and meal, mixed up with the wine of Pramnos, to the wounds of Machaon.^[18]

The revolutions and vicissitudes which remedies have undergone, in medical as well as popular opinion, from the ignorance of some ages, the learning of others, the superstitions of the weak, and the designs of the crafty, afford ample subject for philosophical reflection; some of these revolutions I shall proceed to investigate, classing them under the prominent causes which have produced them, viz. Superstition—Credulity—Scepticism—False Theory—Devotion to Authority, and Established Routine—The assigning to Art that which was the effect of unassisted Nature—The assigning to peculiar substances Properties, deduced from Experiments made on inferior Animals—Ambiguity of Nomenclature—The progress of Botanical Science—The application, and misapplication of Chemical Philosophy—The Influence of Climate and Season on Diseases, as well as on the properties, and operations of their Remedies—The ignorant Preparation, or fraudulent Adulteration of Medicines—The unseasonable collection of those remedies which are of vegetable origin,—and, the obscurity which has attended the operation of compound medicines.