98 



THE FERN BULLETIN 



unable to subscribe for the modern magazines that 

 would keep them up to the minute regarding the styles 

 in botanical nomenclature, missed entirely the delights 

 that come from wrangling over obscure and forgotten 

 names, and were doubtless entire strangers to that sys- 

 tem of nomenclatural "stability" in comparison with 

 which an earthquake would look like a millpond on a 

 summer day. 



The science of botany began in the pleasant art of 

 "simpling" — in the collecting and preparing of drugs 

 that were reputed specific for a multitude of ailments, 

 real or imaginary. Such plants as lacked useful pro- 

 perties, or a reputation for such properties, which is 

 much the same thing in drugs, held no place in the pub- 

 lic eye and entirely missed inclusion in those botanical 

 "Who's Who's," yeclept an "Herbal" by tl?e untutored, 

 that began to appear shortly after Johann Gutenberg 

 discovered that there are other ways of making one's 

 mark besides using a paint brush or a split goosequill. 



The male fern, however, had no difficulty in hold- 

 ing a commanding position in these voluminous tomes. 

 The plant seems to have been something of a wonder in 

 those early days with a reputation for medicinal effi- 

 ciency that made it stand out from the other ferns like 

 a good deed in a naughty world. Indeed, so great was 

 its fame that its remembrance still lingers in the Ma- 

 teria Medica of the present time. It was a favorite 

 remedy with old Doctor Galen, and Doctors Theo- 

 phrastus and Dioscorides, who were high rankers in 

 the medical profession a hundred centuries before any- 

 body who knew anything about medicine was born, 

 held it in high repute for expelling the tape-worms that 

 a thoughtless clientele would absent-mindedly develop 

 as a result of endeavoring to assimilate meat that had 

 not been properly inspected by the government experts. 



