HORTICULTURE IN RELATION TO MEDICINE. 



51 



In the thirteenth century (a.d. 1294) the monks of Dunstable had 

 a herbary attached to their priory, and the herbary mentioned in 

 Chaucer's "Priest's Tale " appears to have been stored with herbs and 

 shrubs. Traces of the plants formerly cultivated in the physic gardens 

 attached to monasteries, abbeys, and nunneries still remain here and 

 there throughout Great Britain, occurring now in a wild state, such as 

 Aristolochia Clematitis in the ditch banks surrounding the ruins of 

 Godstone nunnery near Oxford, belladonna near Furness Abbey, borage 

 near Abbotsbury, and Tcucrium Chamcedrys on the old walls of ruins, and 

 Aconitum napelhts in orchards, and damp places near ruins. Asarabacca 

 (Asarum curopczum) is another instance. Private physic gardens existed 

 in the time of Erasmus (1488-1526), and some of these developed into 

 municipal physic gardens. The one usually stated to have been the 

 earliest of these public gardens was that formed at Padua in 1543, and 

 arose from Bonaside's garden of simples founded in 1535, although it 

 has been stated that one was instituted at Hamburg in 1316.* Other 

 municipal physic gardens rapidly followed, viz. — that at Pisa in 1544 ; 

 Bologna, 1547; Zurich, 1560; Paris, 1570; Leipsic, 1580; Jardin des 

 Plantes, 1610 ; Oxford, 1632 ; and the Apothecaries' Garden at Chelsea 

 in 1673. The formation of these gardens naturally led to the publication 

 of lists of plants cultivated in them. 



Most of these lists were written by persons holding a medical degree in 

 one or more universities, and it is to the knowledge of plants diffused 

 by them that modern medicine owes much, and horticulture is also 

 indebted to a considerable extent, since many of those who studied 

 medicinal plants at these gardens subsequently travelled abroad and added 

 largely to our knowledge of ornamental and useful plants. 



The earliest of these lists or herbals extant is that published in 1516 by 

 Peter Treveris, who appears to have been a surgeon. The Kev. William 

 Turner, who held medical degrees at Bologna and Oxford universities, 

 has been called the Father of English Botany. He had charge of one of 

 the earliest botanic gardens in this country at Kew, and subsequently a 

 very fine one of his own, whilst Dean of Wells. His first botanical work 

 was entitled " Libellus de Re Herbaria," published in 1538, and was 

 followed in 1540 by " The Names of Herbes " and a Herbal in three editions 

 from 1551-1568. The Herbal of Dodoens (Rembert Dodonaeus), who was 

 physician to the Emperor Maximilian 1517-1588, and Professor of Physics 

 at Leyden, was published in 1578. He was also author of " Stirpium His- 

 toriag Pemptades," upon which Gerarde's " Herbal," published in 1597, was 

 founded. Gerarde was educated as a surgeon and had a large physic 

 garden in Holborn, of which he published a catalogue in 1596, containing 

 about 750 plants. The garden is probably the one delineated at the foot 

 of the title-page, which is reproduced overleaf (fig. 13), of the scarce 

 edition of his " Herbal." 



It was about this time that the taste for florists' flowers was brought 

 over from Flanders by the Flemish weavers who took refuge in this 

 country from the persecutions of the Duke of Alva. Gerarde mentions 

 that one James Garret, a London apothecary, was a principal collector and 



* Rudolf Mosse in Introduction to Official Guide to Rami. Bot. Exhib. 1899. 



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