OIVI BOTANICI. 35 



whose observance is indispensable to the conservation of health. Ad- 

 monitions without end, and volumes without number, have solicited 

 the concern of mankind for this most important study, with all kinds 

 of earnestness and affection, ever since the days when the " Freed- 

 man of Augustus" endeavoured by the precepts of experience to pre- 

 serve the vigorous Roman constitution from the depravement of aii 

 infectious and malignant luxury. Such Rules are simple and intelli- 

 gible ; and wise is the man who strives to repeat them with prudent 

 firmness, so as to ensure the benefits of their habitual application. 

 Temperance in diet, suitable garments, moderation in sleep, proper 

 exercise, necessary amusements, with the right degree of active bene- 

 volence and of equanimity hallowed by religion — these are the ever- 

 lasting elements of health and the safeguards of happiness. 



Musa the Plant. — Naturalists have exercised a laudable industry 

 in recording a nomenclature* of the Musa, in most dialects of the 



the dispersion of visceral congestions. Pliny was conversant with the pecu- 

 liarities of Musa's method; and, in Book xxvii, chapter ix, of his Natural 

 History, he specifies concisely the varied intentions wherewith these plants 

 were exhibited. " There is no vse of physicke of the Feme-roots," he say's, 

 " but when they be ivst two yeres old ; for both before and after that time, 

 they serue for no purpose. Taken in this their season, they do expel! all 

 kind of uermin out of the guts ; with honey, if they be broad and flat 

 wormes ; but in some swete wine for all the rest, whether they be round or 

 small, so that the patient continve this drink three daies together. Both of 

 them are very contrarie to the stomack ; howbeit they purge the belly and 

 evacuate choler, then waterish humovrs ; bvt the better do they chase the 

 forsaid flat wormes out of the body in case they be quickened with the like 

 quantitie of Scammonie. The pouder of Ferne-roots is singvlar to be strew- 

 ed vpon maligne vlcers ; yea, and vpon the farcins and sores in horse necks : 

 the leaves kill Punaises or "Wallice, and a Serpent they will not harbovr ; 

 and therefore it is good for those who are to lie in svspected places, to make 

 them pallets of Ferne-leaues, or at leastwise to lay them vnder their beds : 

 the very smoke of them also, when they be burned, doth chase away Serpents." 

 Here then, aged seventeen hundred years, is the prototvpe of Madame Nouf- 

 fer's celebrated vermifuge which Louis XVI purchased for seven hundred 

 and fifty pounds sterling — a princely oblation at the altar of pure philan- 

 thropy. 



" From immemorial time, this plant has been designated Mux, Muza and 

 Amuza indiscriminately, by the Arabian physicians : the Persians call the 

 tree Daracht Mous, and its fruit is denominated Mous, in their language. 

 Most of the appellations by which it is known in the various countries where 

 it was first discovered by Europeans to be of spontaneous growth, are enu- 

 merated, from Oviedo 1526, Bruchard 1554, Thevet 1558, Garcias ab Horto 

 1667, Christoval a Costa 1578, and De Lery 1578, by Charles L'F.cluso 

 (Clwius) in his Exoticorum Libri Decern; folio, Lugd. Bat. 1605; p. 22!), 230, 



