HIS STUDY OF HERBS. 9! 



John Duncan possessed at a later time a very fine 

 octavo copy of the "Herbal," edited in 1835 by Sir 

 John Hill, M.D. He also took out, in sixpenny parts, a 

 large work by this same Sir John, " The Family Herbal," 

 with an account of all plants, English and foreign, " re- 

 markable for their virtues," with recipes for "distilled 

 water, conserves, syrups, electuaries, juleps, draughts," 

 etc., and " elegant plates of one hundred and sixty English 

 plants, accurately drawn and coloured from nature." 



At an early date, he bought another smaller but more 

 scientific work of a similar kind, " Tournefort's Compleat 

 Herbal " (1719), "^translated from the Latin," two volumes 

 in one, also with very good plates. The author, who is 

 described on the title as " Chief Botanist to the late French 

 King," was a Frenchman, one of the greatest botanists of 

 the seventeenth century, who was born in 1656, and died 

 in 1708. He travelled widely, and wrote several works 

 on botany, which did great service to the growing science. 

 He was the first to classify plants in genera, and formed 

 a system which maintained its sway till it was superseded 

 by that of Linnaeus. Duncan purchased, in 1842, an 

 " Alphabet of Medical Botany," by James Rennie, M.D. 

 He extended his medical knowledge in after years, and 

 possessed books on some of its more difficult parts, such as 

 " Walsh on Cancer." 



Even after being introduced to scientific botany, Duncan 

 retained to the last a thorough faith in their medicinal 

 virtues, and pursued his quasi-medical studies alongside 

 of his scientific. His knowledge of plants was. at no time 

 a barren, dry, technical accumulation of characteristics and 

 words, in both of which botany is richer than most other 



