134 



LOWER PLANTS, DISEASES, AND MEDICINE 



Solomon's House, the parliamentary blasting and mildew is not known, 



body in which intelligence, not politics, whether due to bad weather or bad 



reigned supreme. Tliis was indeed pathogens, they obviously imply seri- 



Utopia, conceived three and a half ous deviation from the normal, and can 



centuries ago. Have we inched toward therefore be considered diseases. When 



it or have we strayed afar? Do we need plant diseases were among the severe 



philosophers from Solomon's House to penalties for wrongdoing, they must 



tell us that we cannot embellish life if have been widely known and feared. 



we cannot sustain it? Was the idea of They, therefore, made at least some 



the New Atlantis so good that it was contributions to the development of 



good for nothing? Or did some scien- the moral code of ancient Israel. 



tists read, "Men ought to know that in "Stern Robigo, spare the herbage 



the theatre of human life it is only for of the cereals; withhold, we pray, thy 



gods and angels to be spectators," and roughening hand . . ." is the begin- 



profit thereby? ning of a well-known prayer to Robi- 



Conspicuous among the biologists gus, the special rust god of the Romans. 



who realized that they were neither The annual festival of the Robigalia is 



gods nor angels were the plant pathol- reputed to have been initiated by King 



ogists. As they were not even angelic, Numa Pompilius, possibly about 700 



they went to work on earthly prob- b.c, and was continued with modifica- 



lems; they went into the fields and the tions into the Christian era. In his 



market places and tried to earn their Rerum Kusticarum, probably the best 



keep by killing noxious plants in order Roman treatise on agriculture, Varro 



that useful plants might live. And so it includes Robigus among the twelve 



is time to tell plant pathologists what councillor-gods who are the special 



wonderful people they are. patrons of the husbandman, distinct 



Plant pathology has a rich and from "those urban gods, whose images 



varied history and a potentially brilliant stand around the forum, bedecked with 



future. The principal reason for going gold, six male and a like number of 



backward into history is to see more females. . . ." 



clearly what is ahead. But how far back In a polytheistic system there is 



do we need to go; when did plant likely to be specialization of function 



pathology become a science? To adduce and form among the gods. That the 



documentary evidence that plant dis- twelve councillor-gods were assigned 



eases were destructive throughout the to agriculture is a tribute to the impor- 



ages of recorded history is easy. It is tance of Roman agriculture; that one 



harder, however, to evaluate their role of them was assigned full time to a 



in scientific and social development, single kind of plant disease is a tribute 



because much of the evidence is purely to the discernment of the Romans. At 



circumstantial. least they recognized the great impor- 



Among Jehoxah's terrible curses for tance of diseases and put both the gods 



disobedience were blasting and mildew; and science to work in controlling 



locusts and caterpillars; the botch of them. 



Egypt, scab, and itch; and blindness To Varro and many other Romans 



and madness. Solomon prayed for de- science had to be practical; they were 



liverance from "blasting, or mildew, a practical people. Even their gods were 



locusts, or caterpillars." Amos and practical, and they were practical about 



Haggai both stated that God actually their gods. Three centuries after Varro, 



had punished with blasting and mil- Constantine the Great, in 313 a.d.,' 



dew. Although the exact nature of granted to Christians and all others 



