144 



humani, or the moss growing on a skull that is exposed to the air, 

 is a very good astringent, and stops bleeding if applied to the 

 parts, or even held in the hand." 



Ollamh. — This was the highest degree, in the ancient Gaelic 

 system of learning, and before universities were established, 

 included the study of law, medicine, poetry, classics, &c. A 

 succession of such an order of literati, the Beatons, existed in 

 Mull, Islay, and Skye from time immemorial, until after the middle 

 of last century. 



By the courtesy of Professor Mackinnon, the author is per- 

 mitted to give the substance of his lecture before the Celtic Class 

 in Edinburgh. The valuable information therein given accounts 

 for the wide diffusion of the knowledge of simples and how they 

 were obtained among the population long ago. 



Professor Mackinnon, in delivering his opening lecture in connection with 

 the Celtic Class at Edinburgh University, after observing that the Gaels, like 

 other nations, credited their heroes with a knowledge of the healing art, stated 

 that among the mediteval Gaels, both in Ireland and the Western Highlands, 

 there were regular practitioners who devoted themselves to their profession, 

 and who left behind them a mass of literature — a remnant of which was still 

 preserved in Dublin, London, Oxford, and Edinburgh. Dr. Moore, of 

 London, described some twenty years ago eight medical MSS. which belong 

 to the British Museum. He found that they were translations or versions of 

 the principal medical works of antiquity and the middle ages, of Galen, Hippo- 

 crates, Bernard Gordon, and others. The Scottish collection is peculiarly rich 

 in MSS. of this class, about one-third of the sixty-five catalogued MSS. being 

 medical or quasi-medical in whole or in part. There were, besides, a valuable 

 MS. in the library of the Antiquarian Society, another in the University 

 Library, and three in the Professor's own possession (these last and the 

 University MS. were shown in the class-room). After giving a brief description 

 of them as a whole, particular attention was drawn to the MS. in the Society 

 of Antiquaries' Library, being a Gaelic translation of Bernard Gordon's Lilium 

 Medicnce, presented to the Society in 1784 by the Rev. Donald Macqueen, of 

 Kilmuir, Skye. A memorandum on the fly-leaf stated that the volume was at 

 one time the property of Farquhar Bethune, of Husabost, who valued it so 

 highly that while he went himself by boat to Dunvegan Castle, he sent horse 

 and man by road with the Lilium, to ensure its greater safety. Attention was 

 also drawn to MS. IV., Advocates' Library collection, » tiny vellum, fastened 

 with thong and button. In that volume the position of medicine in relation on 

 the one hand to divinity and philosophy, on the other to physics, astronomy, 

 and astrology, is set forth. One of the Professor's own volumes is a most 

 valuable pharmacopoeia — a list of trees and plants in alphabetical order, with 

 the therapeutic properties of each. The authors, or rather translators and 

 transcribers of these documents, were chiefly » family or two families, who 



