INTRODUCTION. 5 



done so in the case of the study of plants, if we 

 may be allowed to draw any inference from the con- 

 temporary story of the renowned Centaurs, whose 

 great chief Chiron is represented as being famous 

 not only for his manly accomplishments and moral 

 virtues, but also for his skill in the medicinal pro- 

 perties of plants ; in honour of whom it is supposed 

 that the genus Chironia was originally named. 



The celebrated ./feculapius, also the pupil of 

 Chiron, and god and father of medicine, according 

 to the mythology of the Greeks, is said to have been 

 so deeply skilled in the medical virtues of herbs, as 

 to be able by means of them to restore the dead to 

 life.* From which miraculous talent, though al- 

 together fabulous, we may however infer the pro- 

 gress of botanical inquiry, at least with a view to 

 the ascertaining of the medical virtues of herbs ; in 

 the knowledge of which the Greeks seem now to 

 have made some considerable advancement, as ap- 

 pears from the medical celebrity of Machaon and From the 

 Podalirius, the sons of -ZEsculapius ;-{- renowned for Homer. 

 their skill in the art of healing by means of the 

 application of herbs at the period of the Trojan 



* Namque ferunt fama Hyppolitum 



i 'ad sidera rursus 



/Etheria et superas cceli venisse sub auras, 

 Paoniis revocatum herbis, et amore Dianse. 



Virg. jn. vit. 770* 

 f . AentAq;r<5 ei>o -zrauh 



Iliad.*. 731 



t Ibid. 



