119 



As a work of science Dr. Valenti-Serini's book has its value — though it is 

 certainly very weak and disappointing here — but as a work for general infor- 

 mation, which it professes to be, it is worse than useless. 



" lo credo, se non isbaglio, che questo sia il mezzo pid adattato perch6 il popolo si 

 formi di queste piante una Idea se non chiarissima, approssimativa almeno, per regolarsi 

 quando vada in cerca delle medesine"— p. xii. 



Carry the same argument on which this claim to public utility is founded 

 into any other class of plants and its absurdity will be transparent. Ought we 

 to abstain from potatoes because it is the only wholesome product of a poison- 

 ous family until we have thoroughly learnt all the dreadful effects of • the other 

 members of the family? Must we not eat celery or parsley untU we have 

 studied all the many and common umbelliferous plants which are poisonous ? 



Mr. Wortbington G. Smith and some friends had pulled up a plant of the 

 Hogweed, or Cow-parsley, with a root like the parsnip. They thought it tasted 

 like sweet chesnut, but luckily eating it cautiously they found their throats 

 begin to bum, and escaped with this discomfort only. You will doubtless re- 

 member also this spring seeing the account of three gentlemen in the island of 

 Jersey, who, tired with a long walk, sat down to rest themselves. One of 

 them pulled up a succulent plant with a root something like a can-ot. It was 

 the deadly nightshade. He ate some of it, and was dead in six hours. His two 

 friends, who had merely tasted it, were made very uncomfortablt. May we 

 not eat parsnips or carrots imtil we have carefully learnt all about Heracleum 

 sphondilium and Atropa belladonna ? 



When Science wishes to teach the people it should do so by simple 

 conclusions, and not by terrifying arguments they cannot foUow. There 

 is no royal road to learning. Nature has no fixed outlines, and all natxiral 

 objects require individual study. Here is an example of the errors committed 

 when Science would be too precise. In works of school Botany it used formerly to 

 be stated that all plants with papUionaceous flowers, as peas, beans, &c., are 

 wholesome and nutritious. A young housekeeper, at the time studying Botan}', 

 met with this statement, and finding the Laburnum to have papilionaceous 

 flowers, gathered the pods, had them sliced as French beans, and then boiled for 

 the table. Luckily they were not nice, so the young people ate sparingly, but one 

 elderly lady, who partook of them more freely, very nearly lost her life, and 

 all who tasted them were made iU. 



For the sake of condemning Funguses altogether, the author quotes, and 

 the reviewer re-echoes in the same spirit, the old Latin axiom— "Sunt bona 

 mixta maUs, Sunt mala mixta bonis," entirely overlooking its general application. 

 Evil is everywhere mixed with good, and in food, as in all other things, it is 

 an object of Hfe to learn to choose the good and to reject the evil. True 

 science will ever be at hand to aid in the selection, and that science must be 

 false which teaches the rejection of both for no better reason than this, 



