146 



LOWER PLANTS, DISEASES, AND MEDICINE 



about this particular fonii of life. Tlicy microscope. Today, these tiny, fragile 



were useful mainly in biology classes as shells form the foundation of many 



something interesting to study with a thriving and important industries. 



QUESTIONS 



1. Name two accomplishments of Lccu- 3. What name is applied to fossil di- 

 wcnhock. atoms? 



2. What is a diatom? Describe its struc- 4. List 9 uses to which diatoms are put. 

 tare and life history. 



Botany and Medicine 



H. W. Youngken, Jr. 



Reprinted with the permission of the author 

 and publishers from the American Journal of 

 Botany 43:862-869, 1956. 



Obviously, man's first interest in 

 plant life dates back to earliest time 

 when, in order to survive, he soon rec- 

 ognized a need to become familiar with 

 the plants of his environment and to 

 engage in food crop development. This 

 was long before botany took form as a 

 science. Concomitantly with the earli- 

 est need of plants for food there was a 

 keen awareness of the values of many 

 forms of plant life as sources for medi- 

 cines. Admittedly, the use of plants in 

 early medicine was often cloaked in 

 mystery and physician-botanists, of 

 which there were manv, were fre- 

 quently better psychologists, philoso- 



phers or in many cases tribal witch 

 doctors, than medical scientists. Never- 

 theless the influence of a botanical in- 

 terest in medicine, or medicine in 

 botany as one might also look at it, 

 was stimulated early and long before 

 both sciences became formalized as we 

 know them today. 



Before dealing with some of the 

 modern concepts of botano-mcdico re- 

 lationships it is perhaps pertinent that 

 several of the highlights of early ma- 

 teria medica which played an impor- 

 tant part in the development of botany 

 as a science be reviewed. In the pages 

 that follow it will be seen that even 



