LEOPARD'S-BANE. 313 



this plant in the morning fasting, and two hours 

 afterwards he wrote a letter to a friend, in which 



he said that he was then in good health ; but it 

 appears, from the account of his other friends, that 

 he had not sent off the letter an hour before he was 

 taken ill and died. 



Matthiolns appears to have been a strong advo- 

 cate for the admission of this plant into medical 

 use, and he asserted that it had no venomous 

 quality ; but he afterwards had reason to change 

 his opinion, having given it to a dog, which it 

 killed. 



This plant is a native of the mountains of Swit- 

 zerland, the Alps, Austria, Hungary, &c. Most 

 of our modern English writers on botany mention 

 it as indigenous to this country ; but Martyn says, 

 " this is one of the plants which, from the facility 

 with which it propagates itself, has lately escaped 

 from the gardens to increase the British Flora. 

 Mr. Lightfoot remarked it in Scotland, but always 

 near houses ; and Dr. Stokes near Duplin House. 

 Dr. Turner's account of this plant seems to confirm 

 Mr. Martyn's statement, as this writer says, in 

 1568, " Doronijum, otherwise called Carnaba- 

 dium, groweth not that I knowe of in England, 

 and, that I remember, I never sawe it growyng but 

 once, and that was in Germanye." He adds, a the 

 rootes are wel knowen in the apothecaries 1 shoppes ; " 

 vol. i. p 



