This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1867 edition. Excerpt: ... PLANTS. THEIR COLLECTION AND PRESERVATION. A Physician who would cure disease, or seek to assist nature to throw off all morbid accumulations from the body, should have a single eye to the perfection, purity, or quality of the remedial agents he may feel called upon to employ. Plants should be gathered at a proper period, and under correct planetary influences, and always chosen from those in a wild or uncultivated state. The roots of an annual plant will yieia tneir most active medical properties just before the flowering season, whereas this class of roots are erroneously gathered after the flowering season: in consequenco, they are less active, and do not retain their qualities for any reliable time. The roots of the biennial plants are most energetic if gathered when the leaves have fallen from the plant, in the autumn of the first year ; while the roots of perennial plants are most active when gathered between the decay of the flowers and leaves and the renewal of verdure of the following Spring. Bulbs are to be collected as soon as matured, or soon after the loss of foliage, in order to secure their most active principles. Herbaceous stems should be collected after the foliage, but before the blossoms have developed themselves, while ligneous or woody stems should be collected after the decay of the leaves and previous to the vegetation of the preceeding Spring. Barks are to be gathered in the Spring previous to flowering, or in Autumn after the foliage has disappeared. Spring is the best time to gather resinous barks, and autumn for the others. Leaves are best when gathered between the period of flowering and maturation of the fruit or seeds. Biennial plants, however, do not perfect themselves the first year, consequently, their...