DIVI BOTANICI 193 



Whatever might he the powers ascribed to Euphorhiura after its 

 earliest experimental administration as a remedy, there exists some 

 reason for assuming that they would be regarded as real by Plinv 

 and Dioscorides, when engaged in describing the kinds and proper- 

 ties of such herbs as had then been distinctly ascertained. With 

 these writers., the latter being practically acquainted with the 

 qualities of medicinal substances, the energies of this vegetable 

 exudation are held to be available in the treatment of many differ- 

 ent maladies ; but, with the same writers, there is always the precau- 

 tion, that these energies must be guarded in their activity by other 

 ingredients exhibited with them, in combination. For more than 

 eighteen centuries, and with immaterial variations, these views 

 were transmitted through a long succession of naturalists and phy- 

 sicians, until the elementary principles of the Euphorbium were 

 detected by scientific Chemistry, and their effects on the afflicted 

 were disclosed by the sagacity of clinical Observation. Thus, as 

 the drug's efficacy became better known, its employment was gra- 

 dually discontinued, and it is now altogether without recommenda- 

 tion from any of the "Colleges." As an application for the removal 

 of warts and excrescences, or for the discussion of swellings, it is 

 sometimes preferred by fanciful or eccentric doctors ; but, by the 

 " reformed" rules of the Faculty, the forces of Euphorbium are too 

 violent to be safely entrusted, for any reason, to popular management. 

 On the evidence afforded by extensive observation of the results 



first set foorth in the Ahnaigne tongue by D. Rembert Dodoens; and nowe 

 first translated out of the French into English, by Henry Lyte, Esquyer ; 

 folio, London, 1578. Remberti Dodonsei, M.D. Slirpium Historic Pemptades 



tex, sive Libri xxx folio, Antverpice, 1583 Malines was the birth-place of 



Dr. Rembert Dodoens ; he graduated at Louvain in 1535, and then visited 

 the most eminent of the continental universities ; he became physician to 

 two emperors of Germany in succession ; and, by the last of these, he was 

 raised to the dignity of an " aulic councillor." At a late period of life, he 

 obtained the professorship of medicine at Leyden where, in 1585, his decease 

 occurred, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. Dodoens stood high in the 

 estimation,of his cotemporaries, as a physician, a philologist, a rhetorician 

 and a mathematician, but more especially as a phytographer : his celebrity 

 has its memorial in the Dodoncea, a febrifuge aperient belonging, in some 

 schemes, to the Terebintaceous family of vegetables. Through Lyte's ver- 

 sion and Gerarde's selections, the Pemptades of Dodoens contributed essenti- 

 ally, in England, to the development of a taste for botanical investigation. 



[The preceding biographical and bibliological sketches have been appended 

 to the present article, for the purpose of facilitating future reference : pro- 

 bably besides, they may not be unacceptable to those who find pleasure in 

 such pursuits.) 



VOL VIII., NO. xxiv. 2.1 



