THE USE OF SIMPLES 



IN the language of the old herbalists, a " simple " was 

 the general term for any herb or plant which was 

 supposed to possess medicinal properties. According 

 to the curious belief of the time, every plant in the 

 Materia medica was held to contain its own particular 

 virtue, and therefore to constitute a " simple " remedy. 

 Hence herbs were simples ; and in the botanical litera- 

 ture of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries an 

 expedition in search of plants was frequently termed 

 a "simpling- voyage" or a " simpling-journey," while 

 an apothecary skilled in the knowledge of herbs is 

 designated by Gerarde " a learned and diligent searcher 

 of simples." 



The term has now become obsolete, but it may 

 serve to remind us of a curious branch of learning 

 which was once identified with the practice of medicine. 

 In ancient times "whatever was scientific in the art 

 of medicine was centred in the study of herbs, and the 

 materials of the healing art were wholly vegetable." 

 The mineral and chemical remedies are of compara- 

 tively modern introduction, and date mainly from the 

 Arabic physicians of the Middle Ages. This priority 

 of herbal medicines, as Professor Earle has pointed 

 out, has left its trace in the vocabulary of our language. 

 The term drug, he tells us, " is from the Anglo-Saxon 

 drigan, to dry ; and drugs were at first dried herbs. 



