^] Medicinal Botany 7 



purely utilitarian beginning that systematic botany for the 

 most part originated. As we shall show in later chapters, 

 nearly all the herbalists whose work is discussed in the 

 present volume were medical men. The necessity for some 

 means of recognising accurately the individual species of 

 medicinal plants led in time to a sounder and more exact 

 knowledge of their morphology than had ever been acquired 

 under the influence of thinkers such as Albertus Magnus, 

 who regarded with some contempt the idea of becoming 

 acquainted in detail with the countless forms of plant life. 



The mass of observations relating to herbs and flowers, 

 accumulated during a period of many centuries, largely for 

 medicinal purposes, is to-day serving as the basis for far- 

 reaching biological theories, which could never have arisen 

 without such a foundation. 



It is not systematic botany alone that we owe in the 

 first instance to medicine. Nehemiah Grew (1641 — 1712), 

 one of the founders of the science of plant anatomy, was 

 led to embark upon this subject because his anatomical 

 studies as a physician suggested to him that plants, like 

 animals, probably possessed an internal structure worthy of 

 investigation, since they were the work of the same Creator. 



In Ancient Greece there was considerable traffic in 

 medicinal plants. The herbalists' and druggists" who made 

 a regular business of collecting, preparing and selling them, 

 do not appear however to- have been held in good repute. 

 Lucian makes Hercules address ^Esculapius as "a root- 

 digger and a wandering quackl" 



The herbalists seem to have attempted to keep their 

 business select by fencing it about with all manner of 

 superstitions, most of which have for their moral that herb- 

 collecting is too dangerous an occupation for the uninitiated. 

 Theophrastus draws attention to the absurdity of some of 

 the root-diggers' directions for gathering medicinal plants. 

 For instance he quotes with ridicule the idea that the 

 Peony should be gathered at night, since, if the fruit is 

 collected in the daytime, and a wood-pecker happens to 

 witness the act, the eyes of the herbalist are endangered. 

 He also points out that it is folly to suppose that an offering 



^ pifoT-d/ioi = root-diggers. ^ (/)ap/jaK07r(«Xai= drug-sellers. 



3 Lucian, 'Dialogues of the Gods,' xni. 



