HISTORY. 31 
knowledge at that time in Europe proceeded from Clusius, 
who, after obtaining a broad preliminary education, was engaged 
in- botanical pursuits, principally at Vienna, and finally, until 
the year 1609, at Leyden. As early as the year 1567, this dis- 
tinguished man published a Latin translation of Garcia’s ‘‘ Colo- 
quios” under the title ‘* Aromatum et simplicium aliquot 
medicamentorum apud Indos nascentium historia.” Clusius 
freed the work of the Portuguese of its labored diction, omitted 
many useless and speculative additions of the author, and, on the 
other hand, added valuable notes comprising personal experi- 
ences and observations, Clusius was already acquainted with 
the cola nut, star-anise, gamboge, winter’s bark, sabadilla, and 
vanilla. 
The most instructive and abundant information relating to the 
Indian flora, combined with illustrations of long-known, celebrated 
medicinal plants, is presented (though, indeed, at a much later 
period) in the twelve folio volumes of Rheede’s ‘‘ Hortus indicus 
malabaricus,” which appeared at Amsterdam between the years 
1678 and 1703, as also in the ‘“‘ Herbarium amboinense,” by 
Rumphius (Rumpf), in six volumes, Amsterdam, 1741-1755. 
These grand achievements of the Dutch have been followed in 
modern times by the magnificent works of the English botanists.’ 
Less laudable, even though it is intelligible when considered 
in the light of that period, appears the commercial policy of the 
Dutch in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, through 
which they were able to retain for themselves the exclusive pos- 
session of Indian spices, particularly of nutmegs, cloves, pepper, 
and cinnamon, occasionally even advancing the prices by the 
destruction of these articles when the stock had accumulated to 
too great an extent. 
In the first half of the sixteenth century the knowledge of 
crude medicinal substances had meanwhile been much promoted 
in Germany by the talented teacher Valerius Cordus (1515- 
1544), after whose premature death his most important writings _ 
were first published, in the year 1561, by his friend and associate 
1 See Archiv der Pharm., 222 (1884), p. 249. 
