MATERIA MEDICA, comprehends all the substances either used in medicine in their natural state, or which afford preparations that are so; these belong partly to the animal, partly to the vegetable, and partly to the fossil kingdom.
The preparations and virtues of all which are delivered under their respective articles, but in as concise and scrupulous a manner as we possibly could; since we cannot but remark, that it is too frequent in writers on the materia medica, to give us rather encomiums than impartial accounts of the simples they treat of.