1859.] REVIEWS. 29 



plants had tlie power of driving away serpents^ like the vermifuge ^- 

 of the present day. Such plants were invaluable in the materi '. 

 medica of the ancient practitioner. A plant that drove away a 

 serpent was worth more than one that cured the reptile's bite. 



We do not learn merely the state of the healing art from the 

 pages of Pliny^ but also much of what is now called " Fine Art." 

 For example, he gives the history of the plants from which co- 

 lours, pigments, oils, gums, resins, etc., were derived ; and gives 

 tests whereby the counterfeits might be distinguished from the 

 genuine. 



Pliny's Natural History is an ancient " Materia Medica,'^ 

 or a " Pharmacopoeia," or a sort of " Nosology," or, in still 

 plainer terms, a catalogue of diseases, hurts, accidents, etc., and 

 of the means by which they were curable. 



If we were to give implicit credence to the modern panaceas 

 which profess to cure all the ills that flesh is heir to, we should 

 marvel at the existence of any human ailment. 



Pliny's writings are valuable as proofs that in the diseases of 

 humanity and their treatment there is nothing new. There 

 was as much quackeiy among the ancients as among ourselves, 

 and as many dupes and gulls then as now. 



The ancient Herbals, we mean the British, were formed on 

 Pliny's work, and instead of a description of objects we have a 

 description of disorders. The indexes to the works are not in- 

 dexes of things but of sicknesses, and the plants are classed by 

 their curative properties. The ^Grete Herbal' and the excellent 

 'English Herbal' of William Turner, are compiled on this principle. 



Botanists are indebted to Mr. Riley for his notes on the iden- 

 tification of the ancient plants with their representatives of the 

 present day. If not always satisfactory, they are always learned 

 and intelligible. 



The table of contents occupies sixty pages, and there are three 

 columns in each page ; the average number of articles in a page is 

 about 120 : consequently the total number of articles catalogued 

 in the index is upwards of 7000. If the references average three 

 to each article, — they are occasionally six, and in a few cases from 

 fifteen to upwards of twenty, and in one case, under the word 

 Pliny, probably upwards of 100, — the references must amount to 

 at least 20,000. 



That every fact and every anecdote has a separate independent 



H 



