5'J FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



the power of evil spirits. On this account it was often 

 planted in churchyards ; and the piece we have delineated, 

 innocent of all occult influence as it looks, was picked from 

 amongst the grassy mounds of a country churchyard. 

 As the church is a very old one, and in the midst of a 

 population of rustics who, to put the case mildly, are some- 

 what superstitious, we should hesitate to declare that 

 our plant may not really be the descendant of some 

 carefully-planted predecessor; and we certainly do not 

 hesitate to say that the present plants are as potent 

 as ever, and as efficacious as any that flowered there 

 before them in the centuries that have passed since that 

 quiet resting-place received the first of the many hundreds 

 who now blend their kindred dust therein. 



Antonius Musa, physician to the Emperor Augustus, 

 is said to have written a long treatise devoted to the 

 virtues of this plant alone. Culpepper, writing of the 

 betony in the "English Physician" in the year 1652, 

 quotes our classic author, though he Anglicises his name 

 in a rather funny way. He concludes : " These are some 

 cf the many virtues Antony Muse, an expert physician 

 for it was not the practice of Octavius Caesar to keep 

 fools about him apportions to betony : it is a very precious 

 herb, that is certain, and most fitting to be kept in a 

 man's house, both in syrup, conserve, oil, ointment, and 

 plaister." Fortified with the knowledge that Dr. Musa 

 had full faith in it, and that his Imperial Patron reposed 

 a like faith in Dr. Musa, a man duly provided with a 

 few handy preparations of betony, a bottle or two of 

 syrup and oil, a pot of ointment, and a plaister or two 

 ready for use, must in the Middle Ages have felt fairly 

 forearmed. The Italians have such faith in it that it 



