i 



CHAPTERS IN THE EAELY HISTOEY OF HEPATICOLOGY. 135 



tongue.' It becomes manifest, then, from these citations tliat 

 Lichen has been wrongly called Hepatica by the younger 

 writers, inasmuch as, according to -the testimony of the 

 ancients, it is not at all serviceable to the liver. But if, for- 

 sooth, anyone contends that the herb Lichen is good for the 

 liver because the ancients write concerning it that it is profit- 

 ably used in cases of jaundice, the disease jaundice arising 

 mostly from a disorder of the liver, he should learn from the 

 teachings of Dioscorides and Pliny that this herb Lichen is 

 commended by the earlier physicians not to be taken within 

 for removing the disorder itself, but rather to be applied ex- 

 ternally for the purpose of restoring the natural color to 

 those afflicted with this disease. It is not, indeed, unreason- 

 able that this very herb which, as Galenus says, is of much 

 worth for cleansing, should remove the deformity of the skin 

 due to jaundice as well as that due to ringworm. But if 

 there is an herb which ought to be distinguished by the 

 name Hepatica on account of possessing a preeminent prop- 

 erty of helping the liver, that herb is surely Eupatorium, 

 which seems to have been called thus among the Greeks be- 

 cause it was considered good for the liver. To this Dioscor- 

 ides testifies. * * * * It is, nevertheless, not unknown 

 that Pliny writes that Eupaiorium waa so called from the 

 king Eupator, by whom it was discovered. However this 



may be, it is certain 



in accordance with the testimony of the ancients." 



Hepat 



Hei 



1531, is a contention for priority in botanical 

 nomenclature, a contention which some have apparently 

 regarded as peculiar to the closing decades of the nineteenth 

 century! But none of us, T presume, will now feel that we 

 must call our hepatics lichens! Yet it is evident that the 

 term lichen, as used by the older writers, applied especially 

 to the thalloid liverworts. 



