TO UCH-XJS-XOT. 3 1 



noli-me-tangere, would be so familiar in mediaeval times 

 from its association with the pictures of our risen Lord, 

 that it would naturally occur to the monkish herbalists. 

 " The nature of this plant is such," to quote one of these 

 old authors, " that if you touch but the pods when as 

 the seed is ripe, though you do it never so gently, yet will 

 the seed tiy all abroad with violence, as disdaining to be 

 touched, whence they usually call it noli-me-tangere. The 

 nature of this plant is somewhat admirable, for if the seeds 

 (as I said) be fully ripe, though you put but your hand 

 neere them, as profering to touch them, though you doe it 

 not, yet will they fly out upon you, and, if you expect no 

 such thing, perhaps make you affraid by reason of the 

 suddennesse thereof/' Its faculties as a medicine appear 

 to have puzzled the ancients, as they seemed unable to 

 " affirme any thing of certaintie, but rather by heare- 

 say." Tragus presented it as a " vomitorie." Hill, in 

 his "British Herbal/' published in 1756, says that it is 1 

 a powerful but dangerous medicine, and that the leaves 

 bruised and applied to the skin will raise an inflam- 

 mation. 



Though the "Herbal" of Hill, from the later date of its 

 publication, is not so quaintly curious as some of the 

 older herbals, its hundreds of careful illustrations of plants 

 give it a value of its own. Our edition, published in 1750, 

 is folio. The illustration on the title-page represents 

 " .Esculapius and Flora gathering from the lap of Nature 

 health and pleasure/' while the grand frontispiece shows 

 us " the genius of Health receiving the tributes of Europe, 

 Asia, Africa, and America, and delivering them to the 

 British reader." The genius of Health is a nude and 

 youthful figure, winged, but standing on the clouds, before 



