22 THE WILD-FLOWERS OF SELBORNE 



parts therewith " ; while, instead of physic, he is taking 

 a "plain diet drink, made of dockroot, watercress, 

 brooklime, plaintain, and alder leaves, boiled in wort." 

 For a time, he tells Sir Hans Sloane, he received 

 some benefit from this treatment, till " the winter 

 coming on, and little virtue in the herbs," he was 

 forced to give it over. 



In Gilbert White's History of Selborne we learn, 

 unfortunately, very little about the use of simples. 

 He recommends, indeed, that the botanist should 

 direct his attention to the examination of " the powers 

 and virtues of efficacious herbs," and should endea- 

 vour to " promote their cultivation " ; but he has little 

 to tell us about the actual use of them. The only 

 instance he gives is with reference to Helleborus 

 fcetidus, the stinking hellebore, or setterwort, to which 

 we have already alluded. 



But the belief in the efficacy of simples has almost 

 entirely disappeared. The last of the old race of herb- 

 doctors is gone. One of the last, Dr. Prior tells us, 

 was living at Market Lavington, in Wiltshire, at the 

 close of the eighteenth century. His name was Dr. 

 Batter. He had been brought up very humbly, and 

 " lived and dressed as a poor man in a cottage by the 

 roadside, where he was born and where his father and 

 grandfather had lived before him, and been famous in 

 their day as bone-setters. There, if the weather per- 

 mitted, he would bring out his chair and table, and 

 seat his numerous patients on the hedgebank, and 

 prescribe for them out-of-doors. It is said that, being 

 well acquainted with every part of the county, he 

 would usually add to the names of the plants that he 

 ordered, the localities near the home of his visitor 

 where they would most readily be found." Still, 



