Plants and Drugs in Ancient India

This work may be regarded as a descriptive index to the Ancient India Flora and a handbook to the drugs and economic products in use by native practitioners and other in the province and neighboring countries.

It may be mentioned that the idea did not originate wholly with the author but besides the want experienced by him of a guide to the know Flora of Ancient India, when making a collection of drugs for the Karachi Museum, there was a general conviction among those interested in economic botany, that some work comprehending the subject within a moderate compass was a desideratum, first as supplying descriptions of known plants for enquirer, secondly facilitating by such descriptions the work of those interested in medical and economic botany, as it was clearly evident there were numerous vegetable products of common use in the Ancient India, the sources of which were either uncertain or unknown for want of a scientific guide. (jacket)