PREMODERN KNOWLEDGE OF FUNGI 3 



notably with cereal rusts, the cause of which they ascribed to 

 offended deities. The Romans, in fact. Instituted festivals to 

 appease these deities, for by so doing they hoped to avert from 



Fig. 1. Professor Carlos Spegazzini (1858-1926), the foremost student of 



South American fungi. His studies, while professor of botany at the 



National University of La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina, were primarily 



taxonomic and dealt with approximately 4000 species. 



their grain crops the ravages of disease. During the period of 

 about 1000 years after the fall of the Roman Empire in a.d. 476 

 little was accomplished to increase man's knowledge of fungi. 



Premodern knowledge of fungi. The invention of printing 

 marks the beginning of a period when interest in plants was re- 

 newed and greatly stimulated, and special consideration was given 

 to the identification of food and medicinal plants. As a conse- 



