WHAT A PIECE OF WORK IS MAN ! 517 



ttbkness conjecture, that among the varieties of minute vegetable productions, some 

 may be noxious. 



44 The diseases caused by minute vegetables may be supposed to be 

 probably more difficult to cure, than diseases produced by minute ani- 

 mals, for it is generally a more difficult thing to destroy a vegetable than 

 to destroy an animal. It is often found very difficult to destroy a noxious 

 weed. Many vegetables are so tenacious of life, and so productive of 

 seeds, that scarcely any art can get rid of them. 



" Of the diseases which seem to be caused by minute vegetable pro- 

 ductions, one of the most dreadful, or perhaps of all the most dreadful, is 

 cancer. This, and generally, such sores as are termed malignant, are 

 probably caused by some species of minute or microscopic plant, growing 

 in the flesh, and there extending its roots, and spreading itself in all 

 directions. The seeds of the plant are carried, as foreign substances are 

 often carried, to different parts of the body, and germinating in fresh 

 situations, multiply the ravages of the disease. The caries of the teeth is 

 probably the eifect of some minute plant growing in the substance of the 

 tooth^ It is fortunate that this plant does not extend itself to other bony 

 substances, and that its farther progress is stopped when the destruction 

 of the tooth is finished/' p. 27. 



This tooth-tree is a very curious addition to our botanical registers. 

 Other plants we see flourish in the earth, or hang parasitically upon 

 their fellows; but in neither of these instances are the vegetables so 

 ungrateful as to eat away their supporters. We think this plant a 

 greater singularity than the prodigious Sumatran flower, known 

 under the name of Krftbul. 



We think Mr. Green has gone too far with his vegetable phy- 

 siology, and that he has by this means rather marred the effect of 

 his Entomology. Like other theorists, one capital idea suggested 

 another, and he could not find in his heart to let it go unrecorded. 

 For ourselves, we are rather partial to the vegetable theory. In 

 place of a swarm of insects causing fever in a man's blood, why not 

 have said that fever was produced by a rapid growth of cryptogamic 

 plants in the blood-vessels ; and then the seeds which are wonder- 

 fully minute, might very well have supplied the place of the insect 

 miasma. Here he would have had a strong case in point. And 

 again, it is well known that early spring and autumn are pe- 

 culiarly sickly times. Well, upon the vegetable theory, how simple 

 and natural the explanation ! These are just the periods, when great 

 changes are operated in the vegetable kingdom, and why should not 

 onr interior forests feel their effects? 



We look upon this, therefore, as a slight drawback on the merits of 

 this little work. It spoils the unity of its design, and we think the 

 author should have stuck to his insects. 



When this brochure has attained a proper degree of notoriety, and 

 its opinions are become authorities, the whole ars medendi must be 

 remodelled. Anatomists will give place to human botanists, and 

 physiologists will vanish before Entomology; and, what is better than 

 all, we shall no longer need physician, surgeon, or general prac- 

 titioner. Indeed, a general fumigation once or twice a year would 

 keep down the insects and plants, so comfortably, that we should 

 probably be completely freed from disease ; and, if so, then is the 

 world under unspeakable obligations to Mr. Green. 



M.M. No. 5. a X 



