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epilepsy, in causing a remission of the attack, as to justify its further 
use. He did not know from what part of the country the plant was 
obtained from which the extract supplied to the Hospital was made— 
but the extract itself was unexceptionable. It was the province of 
the pharmaceutist to prepare a good extract—it was the province of 
the physician to judge of its effects. 
There will be no meeting of the Phytological Club in the month of 
April. The next meeting will take place, therefore, on Wednesday, 
May 10, at 9 p.m. 
Friday, March 17, 1854. — Edwin Lees, Esq., F.L.S., delivered a 
highly interesting and instructive lecture “On the Geography of 
Plants,” to the members of the Worcester Branch of the Phytological 
‘Club, and their friends, in All Saints’ School-room, Worcester. 
Mr. Lees, having been introduced by Mr. J. S. Walker (President 
‘of the Worcester Branch of the Phytological Club), commenced his 
address by briefly touching upon the various motives that led to the 
love and study of Botany, and vindicated the science from the charge 
of “dryness.” Mr. Lees then proceeded to mention the different 
ways in which plants had been regarded at different times. Originally 
they were only valued as furnishing food; and acorns, chestnuts, and 
beech-mast, had been the first aliment of mankind before the cultiva- 
tion of corn. After that golden age, magical and superstitious 
qualities were ascribed to plants, especially if gathered at particular 
times. The Greeks and Romans considered Pontus, in Asia Minor, 
as a famous place for dire venomous plants, that would change 
the very nature of man; and the “sacred bean,” the fruit of the 
Nelumbium speciosum, was supposed by the greatest philosophers to 
“possess a mysterious influence. In our own country the mountain 
ash and service-tree were considered antidotes to witchcraft; and this 
was the reason the elder-tree was seen at every cottage-door, because 
it had been considered to keep out all unnatural intruders. Agrimony 
and mugwort, as well as many others, were considered “ plants 
of power;” the former, placed under a man’s head, threw him into a 
state of torpor, while the latter gave him pedestrian powers almost 
equal to the giant’s seven-leagued boots! After the invention of 
printing, and the consequent general spread of knowledge, magical 
herbs began to be regarded with incredulity. But now another phase 
‘in the history of plants occurred. They became “ speed-wells,” 
