130 



HI8T0KY 



HEPATICOLOGY.— I. 



By Marshalij A. Howe. 



The History of Hepaticology from the oldest times to the 

 point at which it was left by Linnaeus has been written by 

 the late Dr. Lindberg.i But, as this work is in Swedish and 

 as its author passes over the earlier writers with much brevity, 

 it is hoped that a more detailed account, in English, of the 

 state of knowledge of the Hepaticse among the founders of 

 botanical science will prove not wholly without interest to 

 the students of this interesting class of plants. For accom- 

 plishing, in some measure, this pleasant task, access to the 

 library of Professor Greene gives me unusually good oppor- 

 tunities. 



The first treatises upon plants, as is well known, were 



written largely from the medical standpoint. The descrip- 

 tions, in many cases, seem to have in view the identification 

 of the plants by persons already somewhat familiar with 

 them by popular tradition, so are often quite brief. In many 

 instances, these diagnoses afford no more than a basis for 

 "good guessing," yet, in others, they are sufficient to make 

 the identification, even to the species, a matter either of 

 certainty or of extreme probability. 



Perhaps the first known references to anything that can be 

 interpreted as a "liverwort" occur in the writings of Aristotle 

 and Theophrastus; at least, Lindberg finds evidence 

 for believing that the term Xaxw with them means 

 Marchantia polymorpha^ though he admits that the word is, 

 without doubt, applied also to several other forms, belonging 

 partly to the Marchantiacese and partly to the lichens as the 

 latter word is understood at the present day. The term 

 fipvov seems sometimes to have been used in the same 

 sense. The Lichen of Dioscorides is in all probability a 

 thalloid hepatic. His description, as we find it in the 

 mediaeval commentators, will be given later. 



l-"Hepaticologiens Utveckling Mn aldsta tider till och med Linne." 



Heleingfors, 1877. 



