16 THE NEW BIOLOGY 



With the reform of religion some men combined aspira- 

 tions after an improved social state ; others were eager 

 to infuse new life into literature, or to free medicine 

 from the bonds which had long impeded it. Not a few 

 believed, at least in the early stages of the movement, 

 that they were simply labouring to remove the corrup- 

 tions of later ages, and to restore the purity of ancient 

 times. Those who occupied themselves with the reform 

 of medicine made it a duty to go back to Dioscorides, 

 and to clear away the misapprehensions which obscured 

 his teaching. It was easy to show that the apothecaries 

 had on the slightest possible grounds treated common 

 Oerman plants as identical with certain plants of 

 southern Europe, which ancient pharmacists had cele- 

 brated as the source of valuable drugs. While these 

 discussions went on the close study of native species 

 began to spread, and field-botanists multiplied, especially 

 it would seem, in and around Strasburg. Few of them 

 published their observations, but their experience was 

 not altogether lost ; among the first to take advantage 

 of the local facilities for printing were Brunfels and 

 Eurich Cordus. The reform of pharmacy and botany 

 long retained its Protestant character, and till the close 

 of the sixteenth century almost every author of a 

 botanical treatise published in Germany or Flanders 

 was a Protestant. 



