PART II. 



NATURAL HISTORY. 

 BOTANY. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE PRESENT STATE OF THE BOTANICAL 



SCIENCE IN PERU. 



IN Peru, botany, considered as a science, was in a manner 

 negledled until towards the close of the eighteenth century. 

 The primitive inhabitants, who were fond of agriculture, and 

 of the empiric pra6lice of medicine, applied themselves to the 

 discovery of the virtues of many plants. The do6lrine which 

 was handed down from father to son, together with a certain 

 inclination which prompted them to this study, and the high 

 employment it procured them, rendered them excellent her- 

 balists*. The revolutions, however, by which the conquest 



was 



* AH the historians agree, on this head. Many years even after the conquest, the 

 Indians had a higher reputation, as to botanical knowledge, than those who pro- 

 fessed medicine. In proof of this, may be cited the proceedings of the assembly 

 holden in the Royal University of St. Mark of Limn, in 1637, to discuss the pro- 

 priety of founding two professorships of medicine. On this occasion, Do£lor Alonso 

 De Huerta, gratuitous professor of the Quechua tongue, observed as follows : 

 " They are unnecessary, because in this kingdom there are many medicinal herbs, 

 for a variety of diseases and hurts, with which the Indians are better acquainted than 

 the physicians. They cure themselves with them without having need of physicians ; 

 and experience demonstrates to us, that many persons, when given over by the fa- 



G 2 culty, 



