488 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



certain extent in the superstitions which afterwards developed so rich a 

 field for students of folk-lore, it may be of interest to give some account 

 of these superstitions as far as they were known to the Greeks and Ro- 

 mans. Although it is not unlikely that the original home of this very 

 considerable body of superstitions was the Orient, it is, I think, beyond 

 controversy that in the folk-lore of the Greeks and Romans (though gen- 

 erally not yet in connection with this particular plant) we may find the 

 intermediate stage, if not the origin, of many of the superstitions about 

 it which were known to Europe in the middle ages. I have therefore 

 begun with a review of the mandragora superstition as known to the 

 Greeks and Romans. Where it has been an easy step I have passed 

 over the bounds of antiquity into the middle ages, hoping to add some- 

 thing here and there to what has already been written about its later 

 history.* 



* In the body of this paper I have given English translations of passages quoted 

 from writers of other languages. The full text of the Greek and Latin passages, 

 with the appropriate references, will be found in the Appendix. In the footnotes 

 — which will be interesting, if to any one, chiefly to students of the classics — I have 

 regularly quoted passages in the original language. 



AVhere I have used simply the name in citing the following writers, the refer- 

 ence is to the work here set down : 



Ascherson (Paul) : Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft fiir Anthropologic, 

 Ethnologie und Urgeschichte, 1891. Berlin. 



Beyer (R.) : Ibid. 



Cohn (Ferdinand) : Jahresbericht der Schlesischen Gesellschaft fiir Vaterland- 

 ische Cultur, 65, 1887. Breslau. 



Dioscorides, Diosc. : Cited by volume and page of Sprengel's edition in Kiilm's 

 Medici Graeci. Lipsiae, 1829. 



Galen : Cited by volume and page of Kiihn's edition in the Medici Graeci. 

 Lipsiae, 1821-1833. 



Iliiser (Heinrich) : Lehrbucli der Geschichte der Medicin. Jena, 1875, 



Hippocrates, Hipp. : Cited same as Galen ; ed. Lipsiae, 1825-1827. 



Koebert (Hermann): De Pseudo-Apulei Herbarum Medicaminibus. Baruthi, 

 1888. 



Von Luschan, v. Luschan (Felix) : Same as Ascherson. 



Meyer (E. II. F.) : Geschichte der Botanik. Konigsberg, 1854. 



Neuburger-Pagel, Neub.-Pag. : Ilaudbuch der Geschichte der Medicin. Jena, 

 1002-. 



I'liny, Plin. : Naturalis Historia. 



Schmidol (Johann) : Disserfatio de Mandragora. Lipsiae, 1671. This is ap- 

 parently the work cited by Beyer, p. 744, note 3, under the name of Tfioiixisius. 



Tiieophrastus, Theophr. : Historia Plantaruni. 



Veth (P.J.) : Internationales Archiv filr Ethiiographie, 7, 1894. Leyden, etc. 



Wetzstein (J. G.) : Same as Ascherson. 



