The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines, by
T. H. Pardo de Tavera

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Title: The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines

Author: T. H. Pardo de Tavera

Translator: Jerome Beers Thomas

Release Date: August 22, 2008 [EBook #26393]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

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| The medical knowledge represented in this book is over a century |
| old. The publication of this book is for historical interest only, |
| and is not to be construed as medical advice by Project Gutenberg |
| or its volunteers. Medicinal plants should not be used without |
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Medicinal Plants

of the

Philippine Archipelago




The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines


By


T. H. Pardo De Tavera


Doctor en Medicina de la Facultad de Paris, Comisionado Cientifico
de S. M. en las Islas Filipinas y Delegado General en las Mismas
de la Société Académique Indo-Chinoise de Francia, Miembro Fundador
Correspondiente de la Sociedad Española de Higiene, Etc.


Translated and Revised by


Jerome B. Thomas, Jr., A.B., M.D.

Captain and Assistant Surgeon, U. S. V.


Philadelphia:

P. Blakiston's Son & Co.

1012 Walnut Street.

1901









Copyright, 1901, by

P. Blakiston's Son & Co.






TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.


This translation was undertaken with the especial object of
facilitating the study of the native medicinal plants by the
numerous medical officers stationed at small posts throughout the
Philippines. In order to aid in the recognition of these plants,
the botanical descriptions have been revised to the extent of adding,
where possible, the size and shape of the plant, English name, length
of leaves, color of flowers, etc., in many instances supplying the
entire botanical description where it had been omitted on account of
general familiarity with the plant. Comparing the few analyses that I
have had an opportunity to make with corresponding ones in the native
works from which Dr. Tavera has taken his botanical descriptions,
I am impressed with the necessity for a revision of the Botany of the
Philippines. However, as the therapeutic properties of the flora are
of foremost interest to the medical profession I have not hesitated
to publish the book in its present form as an entering wedge, leaving
to those better fitted the great work of classifying the flora of
these islands in accordance with modern botanical science.

Dr. Tavera has faithfully described the Malay and Hindu therapeutics
of the present day, enriching his description by observations founded
on a long practice in Paris and in his own native Luzon. From this
potpourri of scientific therapeutics and ignorant, superstitious
drugging the interested physician will elicit not a few useful data
concerning the treatment of disease in the tropics, and at the same
time gain a more intimate knowledge of both the people and plants of