The sky is populated with many millions of stars, the moon and sun. Their existence has been there since the world was born. These celestials live and exist according to the law precisely established. Our scientists can scrupulously explain how they work and live, nobody in the world can explain how it started and who created this order. Our earth has its own system of processes, of which much is known, but the untold story would occupy many more volumes of microscopic— rather than the telescopic— points of view.
To date, the Indians’ knowledge of medical plant food is still being used. Speaking on behalf of Herbalists of the past and present we would like to acknowledge the now admitted scientific art of their trustworthy past.
The main purpose is to attract the attention of general readers and professional groups in this field to the scientific and practical value of Indian heritage, in our case Herbalogy as a field where great possibilities exist. Research abroad has incorporated many old and new facts and figures from Academies of Science, Universities, Laboratories and latest available research material on all Folk Medicine for comparison.
SOURCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
Indian medical botanics as compiled authentic information is deniable unwritten, and most of the books and material on the subject in North America is still unreflected. Therefore we had to search many books and field works associated with plant life but without botanics as a conception. The foundation of this work was from material on Herbalogy compiled by N. G. Tretchikoff, Herbalist, Windsor, Canada. This work of thirty volumes, over 10,000 pages, describing more than 5,000 plants, started with N. G. Tretchikoff while in China( 1924 – 51).
Known in Shanghai, China, as a banker, N. G. Tretchikoff was ill with a tropical skin disease. With all money available and after time and the usual treatment failed, as a last resort he turned to the outof-date, unorthodox, but simple treatment of a wise Chinese Herbalist. The first three months showed daily improvement and at the end of six months his skin condition had cleared up completely. This personal experience was the starting point of a hobby( 1936 – 51) that led to his collection of material and professional service in Canada( 1958).
Out of respect and interest, material has been collected, compiled and systematized for the past ten years of his professional herbal practice. When our research began on Indian Herbalogy( 1964) the only other complete set of thirty volumes was presented as an unforgettable gesture, and for organization and ease of work covering Anglo-American, Russian and Oriental Literature on our subject.
Our source was extended by the coast to coast telecast service of the National Library of Ottawa, and the public Library of Windsor. Through this service, books are loaned from other libraries and convenience of research processes is due to the recently established telecast. Herbals and reference books of dictionaries, encyclopaedias, Indian life and history were bought, old, new and revised editions.
A book should not be judged by its title alone. In our search for material we found how difficult the subject is, as there is no special section in the libraries and universities of North America on Herbalogy alone. Therefore bits of information are found a line at a time, book after book. For future readers and students we systematically classified the literature with bibliographical data and annotations.