14 HISTORY OF BOTANY 



The German Fathers, etc., but knew next to nothing of 

 their works, even rating as unimportant Valerius Cordus, 

 who was immeasurably the greatest of them all." 



When we learn that Tournefort wrote of Cordus " in 

 describendis plantis omnium primus excelluit," and that 

 Ernst Meyer, from whom Sachs copied so largely, says : 

 " Eine glanzende, nur zu fliichtige Erscheinung war des 

 Euricius Cordus Sohn Valerius," concluding his short 

 biographical sketch with the words : "So Vielf aches und 

 Grosses in einem so kurzen Leben haben Wenige geleistet," 

 it is difficult to understand how Sachs could have passed 

 Cordus by with " several others of no importance," 

 unless he simply could not be troubled to read him. 



Valerius Cordus was born in 1515 of parents who, 

 though poor, managed, hke the traditional Scotch crofter, 

 to save enough to send their son to the University. 

 Valerius's father, himself a scholar of some repute, 

 appears to have spared no pains to impart his learning 

 to his son. Rifhus, who contributed a preface to one of 

 Cordus's books, writes thus of the youth: " To the best 

 possible education of an intellect naturally keen there 

 was united in him that happy temperament to which 

 nothing is impossible or even difficult of attainment. 

 To these gifts he added a truly marvellous industry and 

 assiduity in research ; and above all a most retentive 

 memory for everything he either saw in nature or read 

 in books." 



At the University of Wittenberg Cordus became very 

 intimate with a distinguished physician of Breslau 

 named Crato von Kraftheim, who provided Conrad 

 Gesner, ultimately the editor of Cordus's books, with a 

 sketch 'of his life. Before he had reached his twentieth 

 year he had pubhshed his Dispensatorium, practically a 

 pharmacopoeia, while staying with an uncle who practised 

 as an apothecary in Leipzig. Soon after taking his 

 degree Cordus was appointed decent in the University, 

 and in that capacity gave a course of lectures on Dios- 



