34 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



commenced, and when they found out any new fact 

 which either threw light upon the writings of the 

 early naturalists, or added something to that meagre 

 stock of information, they used their facts as com- 

 ments on, or explanations of, the writings of Theo- 

 phrastus and Dioscorides. In one edition of their 

 works we duly find the portrait of Bedegar as a 

 white thistle ; but in another this name stands also 

 over a sprig of oak, bearing a woolly gall ! The 

 commentator, it is true, tells us, when speaking of 

 Spina alba that it is called Bedeguard (this is the way 

 in which he spells it), but he is apparently quite 

 unable to see how the name has been transferred 

 from one medicinal article to another. Here, then, 

 we have, in a book published in 1644, the name 

 Bedegar applied to a gall on the oak, and at the same 

 time to a plant called Spina alba. The gall is 

 usurping the place of the seeds of thistle, and 

 appropriating its name. An old writer speaks of 

 the gall as a spongy growth or excrescence on the 

 oak. Since this growth is somewhat rare, however, 

 in many places on the oak, but very common on the 

 rose, it soon became the custom to speak of the rose- 

 gall as Bedegar ; and so thoroughly did the name 

 attach itself to this article in a short time that all the 

 books from the sixteenth century forward which 

 treat of medicines and herbs apply the term Bedegar 

 to the gall on the rose. I have only met with one 

 exception to this rule. The famous old herbalist, 

 Gerarde, earnestly protested, but in vain, against 

 this unjustifiable innovation. In his curious old 

 work, originally published towards the end of the 

 sixteenth century (1595), and brought out a little 

 later in a revised and emended form, he thus speaks 

 on this subject: "The spongie balls which are 

 found upon the branches (of the wild rose or 

 Eglantine), are most aptly and properly called 

 SpongioliC sylvestris Rosce^ or the little sponges of 

 the wild rose. The shops mistake it by the name of 

 Bedeguai- ; for Bedegiiar among the Arabians is a 

 kind of thistle, which is called in Greeke Akantha 

 lenke, that is to say Spina alba, or the white thistle, 

 not the white-thorn, though the word does import 

 so much." I certainly feel deeply indebted to this 

 faithful champion of our cause for so clearly pre- 

 senting our family claims and relationships ; but as 

 T have said, his protest was in vain ; for, from that 

 day to this, the " spongie balls " have still borne the 

 name of l^edegar. As Gerarde gives a figure of the 

 Eglantine bearing a gall (though he will not call it 

 Bedegar), I have now been able to examine three 

 portraits of my ancestors, and I cannot but feel 

 amazed at the change which has taken place. From 

 a thistle to a rose ; from Arabia to Great Britain ; 

 from a cottony seed to a " spongie ball " ! Fact is 

 indeed still stranger than fiction. 



It will perhaps be expected that I should explain 

 what these spongy balls are, which, in modern 

 medicine, bear my ancient name. I turn to the 



various works on medical botany which it has been 

 necessary for me to procure in order to write this 

 family history, and I find that all the most reliable 

 authorities tell the same story — the galls are pro- 

 duced by insects. True, one old writer says that 

 Bedegar is the name given to certain excrescences 

 which grow spontaneously on roses ; as though there 

 were no external cause, or they were quite indepen- 

 dently produced. Recent researches, however, shew 

 that these growths do not come by chance, but are 

 the regular outcome of certain well-known causes. 

 Thus we read in one recent work that "On various 

 species of the rose, perhaps most frequently on the 

 sweet-briar {R. riibigiitosa, L.) or eglantine, is found a 

 remarkable gall, called the sweet-briar sponge 

 (Bedeguar, or Fungus rosariim). Pliny terms it in 

 one place a little ball in another a sponge. It is 

 produced by the puncture of several insect species ; 

 viz., Cynips roscr, &c. The bedeguar is usually 

 rounded, but of variable size, sometimes being an 

 inch, or an inch and a half or more in diameter. 

 Externally it looks shaggy, or like a ball of moss, 

 being covered with moss-like, branching fibres, 

 which are at first green, but afterwards become 

 purple. The nucleus is composed principally of 

 cellular tissue with woody fibre ; and where the 

 fibres are attached bundles of spiral vessels are 

 observed. Internally, there are numerous cells, in 

 each of which is the larva of an insect (usually called 

 a maggot) ; and if opened about August or Sep- 

 tember maggots (or larva:) are generally found 

 within. It is inodorous, or nearly so ; its taste is 

 slightly astringent, and it colours the saliva 

 brownish. Dried and powdered it was formerly 

 given in doses of from ten to forty grains. More 

 recently itj has been recommended as a remedy 

 against toothache. Pliny says the ashes mixed with 

 honey were jUsed as a liniment for baldness. In 

 another place he speaks of the gall being mixed with 

 bear's grease for the same purpose." I have purposely 

 omitted from the foregoing, certain medical and 

 scientific terms, in order that the extract might be 

 more intelligible to my readers ; and must request 

 them to be content with this paragraph, as a sample 

 of the whole matter to be found in other medical 

 works. 



I have thus briefly, but as clearly as I was able, 

 traced my family history from the earliest to the 

 most modern times ; and now in a few words, in 

 order that the whole matter may be perfectly under- 

 stood by the reader, I will give a summary of the 

 result. The name Bedegar is of Semitic origin, and 

 comes from a word Dakar meaning "to stab." 

 From the verb we get the noun Deker "the 

 stabber " (i Kings iv. 9), then by adding Ben we 

 obtain Ben-deker, Bed-deker or Bidekar (2 Kings ix. 

 25), meaning " the son of the stabber," or " the 

 little stabber." This name was in the course of time 

 applied to a spinous plant, and hence a thistle was 



