Xos. 620-621] 



JOAN BAPTISTA PORTA 



457 



his forty-fourth year when the work appeared in print, 

 he must have begun his botanical career at a very early 

 age. 



In this work, "Phytognomonica," Porta introduced a 

 new system for plants, but far different from those estab- 

 lished by his contemporaries or predecessors. His mind, 

 evilly influenced bythe extravagancies of theParacelsistes, 

 dwelt mostly upon such singular phases, remote from nat- 

 ural history, as similarity between parts of plants and or- 

 gans of man and animals, or the resemblance of parts of 

 plants with diseases of man and animals, furthermore 

 the habit or aspect of plants as being analogous to those 

 of man, and finally the relation of plants to the stars, the 

 sun, and the moon. Nevertheless Porta was a botanist, 

 and a very learned one. His studies of plants reveal 

 more than a superficial knowledge of their parts, and he 

 must have known many. But from beginning to end 

 the system, or better the method, proposed by him was 

 too enigmatic to conform with the requirements of nat- 

 ural science, founded as it was on principles so contrary 

 to nature as they possibly could be; and so the system 

 never reached beyond being considered the product of 

 "1 'imagination brilliante mais dereglee." 1 



It is, indeed, difficult to understand how a man so in- 

 tellectually gifted as Porta would ever waste his time 

 and labor on such problems as to demonstrate the secret 

 virtues of plants by merely observing the forms of their 

 parts and the color of their flowers. Thus according to 

 Porta certain species of Orchis with the roots palmate, 

 and o-rasses with the spikes in fives (Cynodon Dartiilon) 

 would be a safe remedy for diseases in foot or hand, for 

 gout, etc.; plants with heartshaped roots or fruits {Va- 

 leriana, Persea) for heart disease; plants with the flowers 

 resembling eyes {Aster, Sedum) for eye diseases. Fur- 

 thermore, piants with spotted stems (Aracea?) would 

 on account of their likeness to snake-skin be useful as 



i Compare Planehon, J. E.. 11 Ties limites de la concordance entre les 

 These, Mcmtpellier, 1851. 



