. HEROES OF SCIENCE, 



CHAPTER I. 



THE INFANCY OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE 

 SCIENCE OF PLANTS. 



Old fancies and notions about plants — Aristoteles, the first botanist 

 — Theophrastus — Plinius — Dioscorides — Their lives, labours, 

 and troubles. 



I Everybody likes to gather flowers for the sake of 

 I their beauty and scent, and most young people 

 ask the names and the uses of the plants which 

 grow them. These appear to have been the 

 questions that the earliest races of men sought to 

 answer for themselves. They gave plants names, 

 and ascribed some truthful and a great many very 

 curious and false properties to them. Many of 

 the first races of men lived on fruits, vegetables, 

 and roots, and it became important to know good 

 and nourishing plants from those which were 

 poisonous. The ablest men of the tribes, probably, 

 studied the names which had been given by 

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