MAcER’s KNOWLEDGE OF STRABUS 201 
Pliny, 19, 50 and 20, 60; but Pliny, after remarking that ‘*‘ Lovage grows wild in the 
mountains of Liguria, its native country, but at the present day it is grown everywhere,”’ 
says little else of it, and gives only three medical values to it, ‘‘for the stomach, for 
convulsions and for flatulency.’’—Macer on the other hand assigns it the sopmrecs 
curative powers: ‘‘ for flatulent stomach; for all interior diseases, 
urinas movet ; menstrua purgat; for all venomous bites, if taken in wine, and if the 
ar well-rubbed up, be bound on the'place; for colic, both in drink and bound on; 
especially the elixir from its root, to drink for colic and for all the before- oe 
and its seeds, which possess ‘‘ feptica virtus, is well added to all digestive remedies 
Apparently the whole of this is taken by Macer from his own knowledge of the prac- 
tical value of this native Italian plant, which he may have been always familiar with in 
its garden state (sweeter than the wild but less ssi Pliny). The wild plant 
Macer probably saw also in its native luxuriance, during sojourns in northern 
Italy ; for Macer’s introductory statement that ‘‘ Ligustica takes its name from its na- 
tive land among the Ligurians, because greater abundance of this herb is produced 
there’’ is no copy of Pliny’s statement and has the air of a visit to its native habitat.— 
So far Macer writes as if sure of his facts from personal knowledge. Then he adds the 
differing properties he had found in Strabus’ MS. saying ‘‘ This plant is harmful (oczva, 
4 very rare word) to the eyes, asserts a both in drink and in odor, yet he directs 
its seed should be span in antidotes ; whether he could have said this from himself 
or from books of the learned is not lost own to me; this I know, that the ancients with 
no small praise : extolled this very herb, nor st I recall that I have read anything, 
e Lig 
authorship on the plant, ne ecbakis Pliny, Galen, Oribasius ; perhaps he had 
Cratevas in his hands he found in him (where he calls lovage ‘‘cunila bubula,’ as quoted 
by Pliny, 20, 61, 60; 19, 50) the same statement which Macer makes of the use of lovage 
for snake-bites ; ia he had other ancient writers not known to us. Then, per- 
haps after writing his poem, Macer, who cites no other recent author, finds a MS. of 
Strabus’ Hortulus, is surprised at its ascriptions to Ligusticum and adds them to his 
poem under a protest which implies that Macer wished that Strabus were yet alive and 
able to tell him of his source for such unexpected statements. 
How came Macer to know Strabus’ MS? Not in the ordinary way of the monk 
turning over the accumulated MSS, of his cloister, if Meyer is right as he seems to be, 
in dee ming Macer a layman, Not at a ee “gba from shes oem re diffusion 
of copies of his MS. a & ne taly, 
recovering by 915 A. D. from de burning of libraries in 884, etc., by the Saracens ; 
*hough perhaps no MS, of Strabus’ ever actually travelled so far. Instead, Macer seems 
now. This points to exceptional opportunity enjoyed ui a probably as 
or permanent court- -physician ; and to a court which bro im at some time within 
sa With the 
‘aa German 
gium, F; riesland, etc. "Of these three Avigene of Charlemagne’s soar e, d ji y 
but slight. 
allure * Macer out of Italy? I see no probability, for its ties to ‘Anis were then 
