CHAPTER IV. 



REVIVAL OF BOTANY, AND ITS HISTORY TO THE 

 SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 



§ 1. From the Arab Physicians to the Sixteenth Century. 



There is nothiDg worth notice in the history of Botany 

 from the time of the Arab ph3'sicians until the invention of 

 printing. It seems necessary, however, to mention a work 

 called ' Macer's Herbal,' which appeared in England in the 

 fourteenth century. It is supposed to have been the work 

 of a French physician, and was written in Latin. It was 

 translated into English by Mr. John Lelamer, Master of 

 Hertford School, who lived about 1373, and on the 

 invention of printing two editions of it w^ere published. It 

 was commented on by the celebrated Liu acre, physician to 

 Henry VIIL, and founder of the CoUege of Physicians ; he 

 was also a friend of Wolsey, Erasmus, and Melancthon. 

 Though this Herbal received so much notice, and was for 

 some time popular in England, it was of little merit or 

 consequence, and contained accounts of only eighty-eight 

 l^lants. 



The invention of printing soon gave rise to fresh activity ; 

 the best works of the ancients, which had become almost 

 forgotten, were speedily printed, eagerly studied, and called 

 forth a number of commentaries. Pliny first appeared in 

 1468, and Dioscorides (translated into Latin) in 1478 ; a 

 Latin translation of Theophrastus was published in 1483. 



