266 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 54 



perties aggravating rather than remedial to that ailment. It was a 

 strong arraignment of the whole united company of the doctors 

 and pharmacists of the time; and Euricius Cordus complains 

 bitterly of the oppositions and persecutions that had followed him 

 and driven him from place to place, while lecturing and writing 

 in endeavors to correct this ignorance. He was not philosopher 

 enough to comprehend that just this abuse and this feigned 

 contempt are the very highest encomiums: the only attestations of 

 his learning and genius which the envious horde of the criticized 

 and the offended know how to pay. 



In this colloquy, the Botanologicon, there are given many partic- 

 ular instances of errors on the part of the physicians and druggists 

 as to plants. We have already noted, in our study of Brunfelsius, 

 how that author mistook German species of Corydalis for the classic 

 Aristolochia, thus, at once agreeing with, and confirming in their 

 ignorance, the whole array of the German doctors and druggists 

 of his time.' Euricius Cordus takes up this case as one which easily 

 establishes that for which he contends. One member of his party 

 reads from Dioscorides that Aristolochia has leaves like the bush ivy, 

 i.e. well rounded and entire.^ This which the Germans call by that 

 name has leaves dissected like those of rue. The leaves and 

 even the flowers of ancient aristolochia were described as having 

 an odor somewhat sharply aromatic; a quality of which there is 

 no trace in these fumariaceous herbs. The root of these, it is con- 

 fessed by all the party, are rounded and turnip-like, as Dioscorides 

 and all the others of olden time had described those of Aristolochia 

 rotunda; but that was the only point at which the Corydalis 

 answered to the Aristolochia description. The fact was plain that 

 people in comparing the plant with the ancient diagnosis of 

 aristolochia, finding that the root agreed, became at once blind 

 to all the points of disagreement. Among the many instances 

 of this kind of error the author presents that of the druggists 

 having mistaken the common wild plum of German woodland 

 borders for the acacia of the ancients. ' The acacia had been 

 described as a thorny tree, yielding a mild gum. In these two 

 points the wild plum was at agreement with the old acacia 

 description. They gathered this native German gum and made 

 the accustomed uses of it, believing all the while that in this 

 thorny tree they had the real gum-bearing acacia. Cordus invites 



' See page 173 preceding. 

 ' Botanologicon, p. 96. 

 • Ibid., pp. 77, 78. 



