MEDICI 



3717 



MEDICINAL PLANTS 



facilities, but they are able to provide sufficient 

 book knowledge to enable students to pass 

 the written examinations of the state boards. 

 Within the last few years many of the low- 

 grade schools have been forced out of exist- 

 ence; of over 450 schools founded, only about 

 100 survive. 



The usual degree given to graduates of med- 

 ical schools is Doctor of Medicine (M. D.), and 

 the ordinary length of the school course in 

 America is four years. 



A Doctor's Qualifications. The profession of 

 medicine is not an easy path to riches, neither 

 does it indulge hope of comparative ease. A 

 successful doctor must be a hard and constant 

 worker. He has little personal liberty, and 

 must be ready to serve at any hour of the day 

 or night. Moreover, he must be a constant 

 student, or the advances in medical science will 

 pass him by and he will fall into the ranks of 

 the inefficient. When patients place their lives 

 in his hands he betrays a trust, who fails to 

 keep informed. It is quite generally recog- 

 nized that the true physician is something be- 

 sides a dispenser of drugs. The genial, and 

 kindly man who brings cheer into the sick 

 room, who gives a word of encouragement when 

 it will help, and who is not afraid to tell his 

 patients the truth if he finds nothing the mat- 

 ter with them, is the successful doctor of 

 to-day. A further requirement is openmind- 

 edness, the ability to abandon old theories, no 

 matter how cherished, when the advance of 

 science shows them wrong. 



Realizing that the necessary qualities are 

 more liable to be found in men and women of 

 education, some American medical schools now 

 require their students to have completed a 

 college course, and a constantly increasing 

 number demand a partial college training, be- 

 fore admitting them for study. In Europe, 

 especially in England, the standard is not so 

 high, though superior to that of the poorer 

 schools of this continent. S.C.B. 



MEDICI, med'echee, a celebrated family of 

 Florence which had an important part in the 

 history of Italy and France. Fortunate ven- 

 tures in trade brought them wealth, and by the 

 thirteenth century they had risen to prominence 

 in the Florentine Republic. COSIMO (1389- 

 1464) was the first to win wide fame. He was 

 a liberal patron of the arts and of literature; 

 indeed, the Medici almost all had this trait, 

 and it was due largely to them that Florence 

 became a brilliant center of intellectual and 

 artistic life. Cosimo's appeal to the pride of 



the Florentines was so great that they called 

 him the "Father of his Country," and seemed 

 not to perceive that he robbed them gradually 

 of all their liberties. 



Lorenzo the Magnificent (1449-1492), the 

 grandson of Cosimo, was the most famous of the 

 name. He won the gratitude and love of all 

 classes in the state by encouraging literature 

 and art, founding institutions of learning and 

 raising Florence to a foremost place among the 

 Italian states. But while the people were given 

 over to luxury and refinement, Lorenzo himself 

 drew more and more of the powers of govern- 

 ment into his hands, until he was practically 

 absolute. 



Under Lorenzo's son, Pietro, the Medici were 

 removed from power in Florence, but they 

 were reinstated in 1512, and in the next year 

 a member of the family was raised to the papal 

 throne as Leo X. Again in 1527 the Medici 

 were driven from Florence, only to find their 

 way back to power in 1530. Other members of 

 the family who rose to great prominence were 

 the Popes Leo XI and Clement VII, and 

 Catharine, who became the wife of Henry II 

 of France and during the lives of her three sons 

 practically governed the country. In the sev- 

 enteenth century pronounced signs of weakening 

 character were visible in the family, which 

 finally became extinct in 1737. 



Consult Horsburgh's Lorenzo the Magnificent; 

 Vaughan's Medici Popes, Leo X and Clement VII. 



MEDICINAL PLANTS. Long ago, before 

 men became interested in plants from a scien- 

 tific point of view, they found that certain of 

 them were helpful in curing illness or injury. 

 Just how this knowledge first came to them we 

 can only conjecture. It was probably acci- 

 dentalperhaps some man with an injured 

 foot, w r rapping it in leaves to keep it from con- 

 tact with the ground, found that the leaves not 

 only protected, but helped to cure; and once 

 the idea was suggested, other experiments 

 would inevitably be made. At any rate, me- 

 dicinal 'plants were the first which were defi- 

 nitely ' studied, and the earliest students .of 

 plant life were not botanists but physicians. 

 Treatises on plants employed in medicine ap- 

 peared many centuries before any systematic 

 classification was thought of. Throughout 

 medieval times almost the only medicines were 

 brews of various herbs, and to-day a large pro- 

 portion of the drugs in common use are pre- 

 pared from plant parts. An extensive list ap- 

 pears at the end of the article MEDICINES AND 

 DRUGS. 



