^rOL. XLVIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 353 



botanists, which are such, as that from the name of the species the plant may 

 be known. But in what relates to the plants before discovered, he adopts the 

 names given them by the botanists just now mentioned, and scarcely ever forms 

 a new one; as he thinks a name already received, though but an indifferent one, 

 should be retained in preference perhaps to a better; lest the number of syno-? 

 nyms, already too great, should be augmented. To these he usually adds the 

 synonyms of the Bauhins and Tournefort; and sometimes, for the sake of their 

 figures, those of Morrison, Dodonaeus, Plukenet, and Loeselius ; and also those 

 of the Russian botanists. Messerschmid, Bauxbaum, and Amman. He has also 

 throughout the work carefully separated the varieties of plants from their genuine 

 species, and has laid down the places of their growth, the names given them by 

 the inhabitants, and their application of them to the various purposes of life. 

 The figures of the plants were taken from the life, and are, as far as possibles- 

 represented in their natural proportion; but from these must be excepted those 

 of G^erber, collected near the Don and the Wolga, and some others collected by 

 Dr. Lerche, physician to the Russian embassy in Persia, near Astracan, and even 

 in Persia; these were delineated from dried specimens: and wherever the figure 

 does not, to our author's satisfaction, represent the plant inteiidedj by the neg-' 

 lect of the painter or engraver, he apprises you of it, and endeavours to remedy 

 this defect in his descriptions. 



The venereal disease has made no inconsiderable progress among barbarous, as' 

 well as among the more polite and civilized nations; and our author has given 

 two methods of treating that distemper among the inhabitants of Siberia; from 

 which, in some degree, an idea may be formed of the state of medicine in those 

 parts of the world. One method is, a decoction of a species of cirsium,* which, 

 grows in those parts, and is first described by the author; in this decoction, 

 when the pains are violent, they add some leaves of a species of chamaerhodo- 

 dendron, which produces effects similar to opium, by relieving the pain, and 

 sometimes bringing on a delirium. If they are not cured by this decoction, 

 which often happens in an aggravated state of the disease, they then boil a small 

 quantity of sublimate of mercury, with some fat, in a spoon over a candle, mix 

 it with the beforementioned decoction, and let the patient swallow it. It is no 

 wonder that this rude method should destroy the patient, and put an end to his 

 life by severe torture, which frequently happens. The other method of cure is 

 a more reasonable one, and is effected by administering a cup full or two of the 

 decoction of a species of iris-|- every morning, detaining the patient in bed. Of 



• " Cirsium inerme foliis scabris, lanceoliitis, inferioribus ex siiiuato deDtatis, sqiianiis supeiioribua 

 calicum subrotundis, membrariaceis." Flor. Sibir. torn. ii. p. I'l. — Orig. 



+ Iris foliis linearibus, corollis iniberbibns, fructu trigono, raule tereti. Lin. Hort. Cliflort, p. Ip. 

 Flor. Sibir. torn. i. p. 27. ]ris pratensis angasiifolia, non ikiida, altior. C. B, P. p. 3'2. — Orig. 



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