32 Dr. Orateloup on the utility of Botany in Medicine. 



forms were allied by their properties, (Diss, de convenient ia 

 plant, infruct. et virib. 1699). 



Isenflamm (Method, plantar. Medic, clinicee adminicul.) 

 Wilcke (De vsu syst. sexualis in med. Diss. ) in 1764 ; and 

 Gmeliu (Botanic, et Chetn. ad midivine applic.) in 1755, all 

 affirmed that the virtues of plants might be known by comparing 

 their exterior forms, or in taking for guides the natural and 

 proper characters of each family. 



Linnaeus, that celebrated botanist, greatly strengthened this 

 opinion by the following rule, that plants of the same genus 

 had similar properties ; that those of the same order had 

 neighbouring properties ; and that those of the same class even 

 had analogies in their properties. Qutecunque planta genere 

 conveniunt, says he, etiam virtute conveniunt ; quae ordine 

 naturali continentur, etiam virtute proprius accedunt ; quceque 

 classe naturali conyruunt, etiam virions quodammodo conyruunt , 

 (Diss, de virib. plant, prop, a Frid. Hasselquist in Amcen. 

 academ. I. p. 427. Philos. Botanica, virtutes § 337). 



M. de Jussieu adopted the same opinion, which he developed 

 in an excellent essay, inserted in the Collection of the Royal 

 Society of Medicine of Paris for the year 1786, vol. VIII, p. 188. 



But no naturalist has carried the developments of this theory 

 so far and in so luminous a style as Mr. De Candolle, in his 

 learned dissertation, entitled, " Essay on the medical properties 

 of plants, compared with their exterior forms and their natural 

 classification, according to the method of M. de Jussieu," 

 (Paris, 1804). 



This illustrious botanist and distinguished physician demon- 

 strates in this work, by proofs deducted from theory, observa- 

 tion, and experience, that there exists an analogy between the 

 general properties of each family and the exterior forms of 

 plants, although very respectable authorities, and amongst them 

 Vogel, Plaz, and Gleditsch, had strongly opposed themselves 

 to its possibility. (J. G. Gledistch Diss, de Method. Bot. dubio 

 et fallacio virtut. in plant, judice Lips. 1742.) 



