THE PREMODERN ERA 



THIS era may be said to begin with the seventeenth 

 century and extend to about the middle of the nineteenth. 

 It was ushered in by the first recorded observations on 

 plant diseases and their control since the days of the 

 ancientT Greeks, Romans, and Arabians. An epoch 

 during which observations and classification dominated 

 natural science in airEnes, we find here for the first time 

 attempts at the classification of the phenomena of plant 

 diseases. During this era were written the first books on 

 plant diseases. Since of all the applied sciences, human 

 pathology was in this age the most powerful and re- 

 spected, it is not surprising that the sister science, plant 

 pathology, should have been largely influenced, in fact 

 dominated thereby, particularly in its nomenclature and 

 philosophy. Imbued with the dogma of spontaneous 

 generation, the phytopathologic""philosophers of this era 

 brought to its perfection the theory of the autogenetic 

 origin and nature of disease in plants. 



This epoch may be divided into three periods: the 

 Renaissance, the Zallingerian, and the Ungerian. 



THE RENAISSANCE PERIOD 



This period embraces, roughly speaking, the seven- 

 teenth century and may be said to have opened with the 

 publication in 1600 of the Oeconomia and Haussbuch by 



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