Missouri Botanical 
Garden Bulletin 
Vol. X St. Louis, Mo., April, 1922 No. 4 
THE CHELSEA PHYSIC GARDEN 
The cultivation, within small areas, of plants for their heal- 
ing qualities, by the monks of the middle ages, appears to have 
been the beginning of modern botanical gardens, although 
these mediaeval gardens doubtless took their origin from others 
of greater antiquity. The monks being compelled to live on 
vegetables and fruits made the garden and its cultivation of 
special importance in the monastery. To the fostering care of 
these men and their knowledge of drugs and horticulture in 
general we owe a debt of greatest magnitude. With the real 
growth in the knowledge of plants and their uses there also 
grew up a mass of superstition, partly founded on old tradi- 
tion, and partly no doubt invented by the herbalist and drug 
seller to prevent any infringement upon their monopoly in 
plants of real or supposed medicinal value. It was largely 
owing to the need of protecting the doctor and apothecary 
against the drug seller that the growing of ‘‘simples’’ in recog- 
nized gardens had its origin. As the medical profession became 
established in universities, these institutions set aside definite 
enclosures for the cultivation of medicinal herbs, the ‘‘sim- 
plicia’’ from which the ‘‘remedia composita’’ were prepared 
by the apothecaries. Since the universities were generally 
situated in towns, their physic gardens were usually small, 
and in various parts of Europe we may still see remains of 
these ancient gardens which have gradually been transformed 
into the botanical gardens of the present day. 
In England, as early as the beginning of the sixteenth 
century, several private gardens devoted to the cultivation 
of medicinal herbs were developed, and 100 years later the 
Oxford Botanical Garden was completed. The first wooden 
greenhouses ever made were erected here, and these were 
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