646 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1917. 



III. 



At the outset I called attention to the influence of humanism on the 

 revival of learning and how humanism in its immediate consequences 

 caused and created a new phase in the evolution of medicine and 

 natural science. One event of entirely different character enlarged 

 and enriched these two branches of science in another direction — the 

 geographical discoveries at the end of the fifteenth century, and 

 especially the discovery of America. Until then the contemplation 

 of nature was entirely neglected. From the time Pliny had written 

 his encyclopedic " Xaturalis Historia " natural science had been prac- 

 tically at a standstill. The discovery of America opened an entirely 

 new field for observation of objects of natural science. The study of 

 plant life was the first field to profit by it, and under the stimulating 

 influence of the revival of learning botany became a science. 



In this movement Germany took a leading part. Three names will 

 always be connected with the history of botany in Germany, and it is 

 not by chance that all three were followers of humanism ; Otto Brun- 

 fels, 1-184—1534; Hieronymus Bock, 1498-1554; and Leonhard Fuchs. 

 Each of these wrote his own herbal ; but Fuchs was the most promi- 

 nent and the most learned of these three herbalists. In Brunfels' 

 Herbarum vivae eicones, published in three parts in 1530-1536 by 

 Schott in Strassburg, we admire the illustrations which are drawn 

 true to nature, though the descriptive text is of no scientific value. 

 The first edition of Bock's work, New Kreutter Buch von under- 

 scheydt, wurckung und namen der Kreutter, so in Teutschen Landen 

 wachsen, Strassburg, 1539, was not illustrated; the second and the 

 subsequent editions, from which the word " new " is dropped, con- 

 tain about 470 illustrations. But the chief merit of Bock's book is 

 the text, which describes only that which he actually observed; it 

 appeals at once to the reader on account of its popular style, and 

 yet is full of power and vivacity. The famous book by Fuchs, De 

 historia stirpium commentarii, Basileae, 1542 (Plate 6), surpasses the 

 two previous herbals in text as well as in illustrations. He is the first 

 botanical writer to attempt a botanical nomenclature. The arrange- 

 ment of the work is alphabetical. In his plant description he applied 

 the following method, which was used as a pattern by succeeding 

 botanists: (1) The name of the plant in Greek, Latin, and German; 

 (2) the form; (3) locality; (4) time of blossoming. The illustra- 

 tions are of the highest order. Heinrich Fullmaurer and Albert 

 Meyer drew the plants, and Rudolph Speklein, all three of Strass- 

 burg, engraved the woodcuts. To show his gratitude to these three 

 artists, Fuchs reproduced their portraits on the last leaf of the book 

 (Plate 7), while his own portrait (Plate 1) is found on the reverse of 

 the title-page. The work met with the greatest success, having larger 



