436 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



is here reproduced. It represents Euresis, the goddess of discovery, 

 handing a mandrake to Dioscorides, and pointing to a dog, doubtless ex- 

 plaining how it was concerned in extracting the forked root, represented 

 by legs in the picture. 



Josephus, in his 'Wars of the Jews' (lib. 7, cap. 6), describes the 

 process : — " There is one way in which the taking up of the root can be 

 done without danger. This is as follows : They dig all round the root, 

 so that it adheres to the earth only by its extremities. Then they fasten 

 a dog to the root by a string, and the dog, striving to follow his master, 

 who calls him away, easily tears up the plant, but dies on the spot ; 

 whereat the master can take this wonderful root in his hand without 

 danger." 



The root was supposed to shriek, as mentioned more than once by 

 Shakespeare ; but, as the late Dr. B. W. Richardson showed, it was the 

 shriek of the patient which somehow got transferred to the plant ! 

 Josephus adds that the great use of this plant is to dispel demons, who 

 cannot bear either its smell or its presence.* 



The first printed illustrations are to be found in German works, ex- 

 cepting the Herbarium of Apuleius Platonicus, which was printed at 

 Rome circa 1480. Fig. 114 is an example from this book which may be 

 compared with Fig. 113. The MS. was probably of the ninth century. 

 The drawing t exemplifies the last and most degraded state of Roman 

 pictorial art, for that given above is far superior. 



* Quoted in Daubeny's Roman Husbandry, p. 275. 



t This plate and information are taken from Dr. J. F. Payne's essay on the 

 Herbariums and Hortus Sanitatis. 



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