6i6 



NA TURE 



[April 25, 1901 



nature. These beliefs have slowly died out, but Sir 

 Thomas Browne, who lived so recently as the latter part 

 of the seventeenth century, iii his Pseudodoxia Epi- 

 deniica wrote a book against the delusions of his 

 couritrymen, himself believing in many absurdities. The 

 medicinal uses to which animals and herbs were 

 applied strike us forcibly in these modern times. The 

 scientific medical man of the nineteenth century was to 

 be slowly evolved out of the medicine-man and conjurer. 

 Nor are the two last entirely gone ; they still may be 

 found in the less civilised parts of Europe and in the 

 more unfrequented nooks of our own country. We have 

 no space to enumerate here the old works treating of 

 popular therapeutics in England, such as the Anglo-Saxon 

 medical books edited by the late Oswald Cockayne, 

 in 1864, under the fantastic title, " Leech craft and Wort- 

 cunning." The late Mr. Mowat, of Oxford, published 

 two contributions on the subject in his Alphita and 

 Sinonoma Bart hoi oinaei. Many other works could be 

 cited in English literature, but the immediate object of 

 our article is to call the attention of our readers to the 

 two volumes which have appeared from the pen of Mr, 

 Joseph Rostafinski, professor of botany in the University 

 of Cracow, and the title of which is given at the foot of 

 p. 615. Prof. Rostafinski has furnished lists of the names 

 of plants, animals, minerals and various kinds of herbs 

 which were known in Poland from the twelfth to the 

 sixteenth century. The greater part of these names are 

 preserved in manuscript vocabularies in the libraries of 

 Cracow (especially the so-called Jagiellon), Lemberg, 

 Prague and St. Petersburg. Some of these vocabularies 

 first became known in the pages of the Warsaw review, 

 Prace Filologiczne, to which they were contributed by 

 Prof. Bruckner, of Berlin, one of the foremost Polish 

 scholars. 



For the botanist and student of natural history, 

 these volumes have much value. Prof. Rostafinski 

 catalogues the names of the plants, &c., upon a care- 

 fully-arranged system ; compares the different names 

 under which they are found, and gives us the Latin 

 equivalents, which will help us in our search for them. 

 He shows us where information has been gathered 

 from Pliny and Dioscorides. His notes abound with 

 folk-lore, and most people know how interesting folk- 

 medicine is. Thus, of the herb koniochrom {Hippocrcpis 

 comosa, L.) we are told that it has this name (lit., making 

 a horse lame) because if a horse treads upon it his shoe 

 will fall off. The Slavonic appellation for the linden, or 

 lime-tree, is lipa, and comes up in the original Slavonic 

 name for Leipzig, Lipsk. On p. 443, vol. i., we get 

 interesting details of the auerochs, of which a picture 

 is given in Hartknoch's quaint old book on Prussia. It 

 has now been almost exterminated, and is only found in 

 some forests of Lithuania, where it is preserved for the 

 Emperor's hunting. It is singular that in the sixteenth 

 century camels were used in Poland ; thus we find them 

 employed in the time of Sigismund Augustus, when 

 that monarch was journeying from Cracow to Wilno. 

 The Slavonic name for camel is derived from the Gothic 

 word ulbandus, which is really a very ancient adaptation 

 of the Greek (X((f)as. 



One of the most curious parts of this interesting book 

 is where the writer deals with the fabulous animals, 

 basilisks, &.C. The folk-lore connected with these is abun- 

 dant. We are reminded of the work of our own country- 

 man, Topsell. In fact, we have a good account of the 

 flora, fauna and minerals, how they were called and what 

 was known of them in Poland during the Middle Ages. 

 Although the scope of the work is m a way limited to 

 Poland, yet, as the author says in his introduction, which 

 appears in Latin as well as in Polish, the book will be 

 serviceable for north Europe generally. There is in 

 reality a great unanimity in many of these legends about 

 plants and animals. Pliny leads off, we may say, in his I 



NO. 1643, VOL. 63] 



"Natural History," which was the great storehouse 

 during the Middle Ages for folk-lore of all kinds. 

 We must not forget, also, Bartholomneus' " De Proprie- 

 tatibus Rerum," a. 1400. The Slavonic riches are being 

 gradually collected ; much has been already done in 

 Russian, and the late Mr. Ralston made use of it in his 

 books of Russian folk-songs and Russian folk-tales. The 

 Sbornik, or J//iT^//a;?)/, published yearly by the Bulgarian 

 Government, generally devotes a section of each new 

 volume to these popular traditions. In England vye have 

 no special organ, except it be the Folk-lore Jour7ial ; 

 our popular superstitions must be gathered from the 

 miscellaneous pages of Notes and Queries and such 

 books as "Gerard's Herbal." No little light is afforded 

 by the curious medical works published in the sixteenth 

 and seventeenth centuries, among which may be expressly 

 mentioned the "Breuyary" of Andrew Borde and the 

 choicely quaint work of Dr. Tobias Venner. In the life 

 of Seth Ward, by Dr. Walter Pope, some extraordinary 

 tales are told of a surgical operator of that time, and 

 also in Aubrey's Lives. 



In all countries the popular names given to plants 

 may be said to be richly significant, and therefore not 

 only the man of science, but the philologist may find 

 much material in Prof. Rostafinski's volumes. 



INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF 

 ACADEMIES. 



THE meetings of the International Association of 

 Acadamies were concluded last Saturday, when it 

 was determined unanimously that the next Congress 

 should be held in London in 1904. Although the Comptes 

 rendus of the various meetings have not yet been pub- 

 lished, it is known that much useful work has been 

 accomplished. Nothing could exceed the cordiality of 

 the reception accorded to the foreign delegates by the 

 French authorities and their scientific confreres. After 

 the final meeting on Saturday, the delegates were received 

 by the President of the Republic and Madame Loubet, 

 and later in the day they attended a dinner and concert 

 given in their honour at the Hotel de Ville. 



NOTES. 

 As already announced, a complimentary dinner to Sir 

 Archibald Geikie will be given next Wednesday, May i, at the 

 Criterion Restaurant. A number of distinguished men of 

 science will be present, and the chair will be occupied by Lord 

 Avebury. It is felt that the retirement of Sir Archibald Geikie 

 from the position of director-general of the Geological Survey _ 

 should not be permitted to pass without an expression of ap- 

 preciation of his services to science and to the nation. All who 

 are able will, we are sure, show by their presence at the dinner 

 that they delight to do honour to one who has worked so 

 worthily and with such success for the extension of scientific 

 knowledge. Tickets may be obtained from Mr. F. W. Rudler, 

 28, Jermyn Street, S.W. 



We regret to see the announcement of the death of Prof. 

 H. A. Rowland, professor of physics at the Johns Hopkins 

 University, Baltimore, U.S.A. 



The Australian mail brings us news that Messrs. Baldwin 

 Spencer and Gillen left Adelaide on March 15 for their twelve 

 months' North Australian expedition. Owing to the presence 

 of drought in the interior, the start, which was to have been 

 made early in February, had to be delayed. The original in- 

 tention of the explorers was to have worked out through the 

 McDonnell Range and the Arunta tribes, and then north, until 

 the mouth of either the Daly or Victoria river was reached ; 

 but it seems likely that this course might have to be given up 

 in preference for an inverse one starting from Port Darwin, 



