14 Botanists of Germany and the Netherlands [Book i. 



if they have made themselves acquainted with the botanical 

 literature of the middle ages and noted how it continually 

 grows less and less valuable, and have proceeded through the 

 works of Albertus Magnus, as prolix as they are deficient in 

 ideas, to the ' Hortus Sanitatis ' (Garden of Health), the popu- 

 lar work on natural history before and after 1500, and similar 

 productions, then certainly they receive a very different and 

 almost imposing impression even from the first herbals, those 

 of Brunfels, Bock, and Fuchs. These books will appear to 

 them almost modern in comparison with the last-named pro- 

 ductions of medieval superstition, nor will they fail to perceive 

 that a new epoch of natural science commenced with these 

 men, and above all that they laid the foundations of modern 

 botany. They give us, it is true, nothing but separate descrip- 

 tions of the wild and cultivated plants of Germany, and these 

 for the most part of common occurrence, arranged by Fuchs 

 alphabetically, by Bock grouped under the heads of herbs, 

 shrubs, and trees, and following one another under each head 

 in the most motley order ; it is true that these descriptions are 

 so naive and inartistic as hardly to offer points of comparison 

 with modern scientifically correct diagnoses ; but the great 

 point is, that they are taken from the plants as they lay 

 before the writers, who had often seen and carefully examined 

 them. Woodcuts are added to supply any defects in the 

 description, and to give a clear idea of the plant intended 

 by the name ; and these figures, which always give the whole 

 plant and were drawn immediately from nature by the hands 

 of practised artists, are so true to nature that a botanist's eye at 

 once recognises in every case the object meant to be repre- 

 sented. These figures and descriptions (the latter are wanting 

 in Brunfels 1 , 1530) would have rendered a great service to the 



1 Otto Brunfels, born at Mainz before the year 1500, was at first a 

 student of theology and a monk ; becoming a convert to Protestantism he 

 was actively engaged at Strassburg first as a teacher and afterwards as a 

 physician; he died in 1534. 



