1857.] BOTANICAL NOTES_, NOTICES^ AND QUERIES, 301 



from Europe, not a costly drug from South America, which has not its 

 counterpart in India. What have we done to discover them ? Doctors 

 living alone, without communication with their brethren, occasionally stum- 

 ble on some valuable plant, some febrifuge or substitute for catechu. They 

 cure all around, satisfy themselves of the correctness of their views, and 

 report to the Medical Board. The white ants eat the Report with gusto, 

 the doctor moves on disheartened to his next station, and there the matter 

 ends. It is useless for the advocates of these effete institutions to talk of 

 the valuable investigations they have suggested or proposed. How many 

 English drugs have they displaced within this generation ? It is a result, 

 not a report, that is required, and the only one obtained is an immense 

 expenditure. At the present moment there is a committee sitting to as- 

 certain what articles now imported from Europe can be obtained in India. 

 How many drugs wiU that committee condemn ? We wiU venture to pre- 

 dict, not one, though every member of it has probably some vague idea 

 that all the English medicines can be replaced. We need an officer spe- 

 cially appointed for this duty, with power to make researches throughout 

 India, and to compel the Services to aid him. Usually all information ob- 

 tained win be willingly placed at his disposal. It is hopelessness rather 

 than want of energy which leads so many surgeons to leave their informa- 

 tion inaccurate or half-digested. No man with brains to devote himself 

 to study will submit his work to a Board selected for its age, and stiU less 

 to a Board which is regarded as a sepulchre of records. It is individual 

 persistent energy, solely devoted to this one subject, which can alone ac- 

 complish any permanent improvement. A skilled chemist, communicating 

 with all India, testing every drug, and bringing all experience into one 

 focus, would do more in a year to ascertain the true qualities of the native 

 phanuacopoeia, than the Boards wiU accomplish in a century. Such an 

 officer would be no very expensive addition to the staff of the medical ser- 

 vice. — Bombay Telegraph. 



SOKBUS. 



I have a copy of ' Dodonsei Historia Stirpium,' etc., published at Ant- 

 werp in 1553. There is a portrait of the author, half-length, full-faced, 

 holding a flower in his right hand. He is attired in a full cloak, edged 

 with fur, and a small cap on his head. On the side of the portrait is 

 printed — 



Eemberti Dodonsei seta. XXX5 virtute ambi. 



The book is filled with illustrations of all the plants described, and they 

 are very well done. It is also filled with marginal notes of the descrip- 

 tion and properties of the plants, written in a plain, close, neat hand. At 

 the bottom of the title-page, in the same writing, is -written — 



Soli deo Robertus Cockram 1600. 

 Would some of your readers inform me if anything is known of this 

 Eobert Cockram ? He must have been fond of the subject, and had much 

 patience to write so many notes in the margin of the work. 



His note on the Sorbus is as follows : — " Sorbe Apple-tree — A Service — 

 Sorb-tree — Eniit Sorbus — Sorbe Apple. There be three sorts of Sorbs. 

 The flowers be white, the fruit like a peare, red towards the sun ; groweth 



