THE BETONY 



BETONICA OFFICINALIS 



SELL your coat and buy Betony," ran the 

 old proverb. " Autres temps, autres mceurs," 

 say the French, and they might well point the 

 moral now with Betony. Once upon a time to 



^ rr:^ \t ) i 



CL b c oL 



a, sepals, b, petals, c, stamens, d, stigma, style, ovary. 



possess this herb was to possess one of the great goods 

 of life or, if it were lacking, it were worth purchasing 

 even with a man's last resources. To be without it 

 was to court disaster, and well it might be since, on 

 the showing of Antonius Musa, the valued physician 

 of the great Roman emperor, Augustus Caesar, it 

 was a certain cure for no fewer than forty-seven 



68 



