n] The Earliest Printed Herbals 15 



some undated, and the sources from which they were derived 

 were seldom acknowledged. 



The passage of the earhest printed books through the 

 press was naturally extremely slow, as compared with the 

 rapid production of the present day. The result was that 

 the printer had leisure to make occasional alterations, so 

 that different copies belonging actually to the same edition 

 sometimes show slight variations. The bibliographer has 

 thus to deal with an additional element of confusion. 



Text-fig. 4. "Aristolochia longa" [Herbarius Moguntinus, 1484]. 



As far as the works now under consideration are con- 

 cerned, however, much of the obscurity has been removed 

 by the late Dr Payne, to whom we owe a very lucid memoir 

 on the various editions of the Latin and German Herbarius 

 and the Hortus Sanitatis, based in part upon the researches 

 of Dr Ludwig Choulant. Free use has been made of his 

 account in the present chapter. 



