802 



A NOTE ON BORAGE. 



was known much before the time of the Criisacles ; and it has 

 been supposed to have been introduced from Aleppo. -•■ 



A confusion hetw een A7ichusa and Burrago,^ and the reverential 

 spirit with which the early Greek and Eoman writers on medicine 

 or materia mcdica were regarded, as authorities whose dicta were to 

 be accepted implicitly, led the mediaeval physicians to ascribe to 

 Borage a very high though quite undeserved rank, as a cardiac 

 and pectoral medicine.]: Its renown indeed was so great that it 

 passed into an adage. " Vulgaris versiculus est * Dicit Borrago 

 gaudia semper ago,'"§ writes lo. Bapt. Porta. |1 



It was doubtless the supposed cordial virtues with which the 

 herb was credited that led to the very fanciful and no doubt quite 

 groundless etymological notion that Borrago was a corruption of 

 " cor ago."^ Sir W. Hooker and Dr. Walker- Arnott accepted this 

 derivation, adding that the name came more directly from borrach, 



' Fl. de France,' ii. 510). M. Alphonse DeCandolle, in reference to the opiuicn 

 of Bertolojii (• Geogr. Bot.' ii. 679, 99:2), allows that " on pent croire le Borrago 

 officinalis originaire d'ltalie"; but it is evident that he is opposed to the con- 

 clusion ; and the adverse judgment of Ctesalpinus may fairly be cited, when, 

 towards the close of the sixteenth century, he -svritps, " Existimo Borraginem in 

 Italia quondam peregrinara fuisse, cum de ea nulla fiat nienlio ab antiquis inter 

 olera " (' De PI.' xi. 3). 



* DeCandolle, ' Prodr, Syst. Nat. Eegn. Yeg.' x. 35. Littre says it is a 

 native of Africa, introduced into Spain by the Arabs. 



t Both Matthiolus (Comm. in Dioscorid. lib. iv. c. 123) and Dodonrous 

 (Pemptad. V. 1, 9) refer the ^ovyXuaa-Qv of Dioscorid^s to Borrago officinalis. 



\ Nostra jetas non modo herbam, sed prrecipue fiores subinde in vinum 

 conjicit, V. acetariisiuspergit, Iretitire ac hilaritatis cxcitandre caussa : condiuntur 

 et in hunc usum cum saccharo fiores : tum et alia ex iis parantur, quibus ad 

 cordis corroboration em, tiistitiam pellendam, et animi Ifetitiam augendani me- 

 dici passim utuntur (Dodonfeus, I. c.) 



§ " Antiquus versiculus 'Ego Borago semper gamlia ago'" (Dodoufeus). 

 Sir Wm. Hooker (' Brit. Fl.', siib voce) quotes a similar English adage, "I Borage 

 always bring courage." 



II ' Phytognomonioa,' lib. iii. c. 11. 



IT Both DodonjEus and Ray quote Appuleius as calling the plant Coi'ago ; 

 and Dr. Prior writes ('Popular Names of Br. PI.', 2nd ed., 26), " Apuleius says 

 that its former name was ' corrago, quia cordi aflfectibus medetur.' " He gives no 

 further specific indication where these words occur, but I should suppose him to 

 refer to the work ' De Herbarum Yirtutibus,' of the pseudonymous Appuleius, 

 sometimes called 'Appuleius Barbarus,' a worthless compilation, chiefly from 

 Dioscorides and Pliny, of very uncertain age, Dr. Greenhill (in Smith's^ ' Diet. 

 Class. Biogr.') supposing it to have been written about the fourth century of our 

 era, Sprengel [op. cit. i. 228) some time before A.n. 1200, whilst Mr. Cockayne 

 assigns a date between a.p. 1000 and 1066 to one of the Old English codices he 

 colLited ; and such a work in those days must have attained consideralde vogue 

 before it was translated. I have, liowever, carefully gone over the original Latin 

 text, in the edition of' Jo. Phil, de Lignamine' (Parisiis, 1528), and also the Old 

 English version edited by the late Bev. Oswald Cockayne, in the first volume of 

 his learned ' Leechdoms Wortcunning and Starcraft of Early England,' and 

 have failed to find any reference to Borage therein. Cap. 42, indeed, treats of 

 Buglossum, but that is referred by Billerbeck to Anchusa officinalis. Linn., and 

 by Mr. (Jockayne to Cynoglossum offiicinale, Linn. The words of Dodonasus, 

 " dicitur Apuleio et Corago, unde fortassis Boraginis nomen, C in B mutato, 

 nisi apnd Ajmleiuin Borago j)ro Corago legendum sit," seem incompatible with 

 the statement that Apuleius himself suggested this derivation. 



