BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN RECORD 

VOL. XXXII JULY, 1943 No. 3 



FOREWORD * 
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For some 2000 years following the death of Hippocrates (460- 
359 or 377 B.C.) the “father” of medicine, the investigations of 
physicians were devoted chiefly to the remedies for human ail- 
ments. “Medical research,’ as we know it today, that is, the 
systematic, organized study of the human body in health and dis- 
ease, and of human diseases themselves, is a comparatively modern 
development. 

The early remedies for diseases were derived largely, though not 
exclusively, from the plant world. Thus the science of botany 
advanced pari passu with that of medicine. In fact the botanic 
garden, as we know it today, has gradually evolved from the early 
gardens of “simples” established for the purpose of bringing to- 
gether in one place for convenience of study, the plants used, or 
that conceivably might be used, in the treatment of disease. 
One of the earliest uses of “simple,” as a medical term, was by 
Sir Thomas Elyot in his Castell of Helth, published about 1534, 
where he mentions “a sycknesse” that “may be cured with simples, 
that is to saye with one onely thinge that is medicinable.” These 
medicinal herbs or “simples” were used alone or in combination, 
making a compound medicine. Thus, the modern druggist often 
—" 
says, in his advertising, “Prescriptions carefully compounded.” 
Figure 2 is reproduced from a photograph of two very old 
wooden “mortars and pestels,” such as were used in the earlier 
period of pharmacy, in New England, in grinding simples and 
combinations of simples prescribed by the physician. Their use 1s 
also illustrated in figures 6 and 7, and on the front cover page. 
* The illustration on the front cover page shows an early 16th century 
pharmacist pounding herbs with mortar and pestle. From Ortus Sanitatis, 
Strassburg, 1517. (10,633) 
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