-Lt6 RETvIARKABLE OCCURRENCES 



Jr«3;nc5 as a great secret *, and purchased afterwards by the late King 

 for a very considerable sura; yet Linnaeus had long before discovered 

 this remedy, and recommended it for use* 



The compendium of the Materia Medica, especially that part of it 

 w.hich concerns the vegetable reign, has been enriched by him with ob- 

 servations and additions which he collefted during a series of up- 

 wards of twenty years. Old age prevented him, however, from super- 

 intending the publication of a new edition. " I have nobody to 

 " assist me," wrote he in the year 1771 to his friend Dr. Gieseke. 

 ^' If you will only stay with me this winter, I will then publish it. I 

 " will read it to you, and you will write after me and arrange it in 

 " proper order t." But this request could not be granted. 



The two last treatises on the Materia Medica he caused to be inserted 

 in the collection of his academical writings. They were afterwards 

 printed as a separate work at Venice ; and since that in Germany, by an 

 eminent pupil of Linn^us, whose merits in natural history are uni- 

 versally allovv'ed. This was the aulic counsellor Sghreber at Erlangen, 

 who calls it the Golden Book (Liber Aureus). Haller, who, after 

 BoERHAAVE, was the oracle of medicine, and a rigorous scrutinizer of 

 the works of Linnteus, publicly enumerated the intrinsic excellencies 

 of that work, which he praised as one of the best of the LinnjEan 

 produftions. In process of time more voluminous and extensive 

 works were written upon the Materia Medica, but Linn/eus first lighted 

 the torch which spread a new and beneficial light over the study of that 



• Radix FUich Maris. 



f Nem'inem habeo qui me adjuvat in eo edendo. Sivis per hyemcm mecum hie commorari, 

 edam ct tuac tibi prselegam, ut possis transcribere ct in ordinein redigere. 



science. 



