OF THE LIFE OF LINN^US. 217 



science. Notwithstanding this meritorious effort, which was duly ac- 

 knowledged by the greatest masters, M. Vico d'Azyr, secretary of the 

 medical society of Paris^ the panegyrist of Linnaeus on the banks of 

 Seine, gave the following diftatorial and abstruse opinion upon the 

 abovementioned compendium of the Materia Medica : " Although he 

 (LiNN^us) has made laudable efforts to introduce indigenous offici- 

 nal plants instead of exotics, yet we cannot help owning that this work 

 «* is little worthy of its author*." 



The genius which seemed so entirely created for systematic order 

 and description, farther displayed its eminence in pathology, which 

 is another branch of physic. The necessity of a system, of a general 

 rule by which diseases might be known and discerned according to 

 their difference and manifold variations, had frequently occurred to his 

 penetrating mind. An habitual praftice of near three years at Stock- 

 holm, gave him a favourable opportunity of coUefting observations. 

 Dr. Thomas Sydenham, the British Hippocrates, had already 

 pointed out in the last century, the essential advantages of a syste- 

 matical nosology. " It would be a very good thing," says he, " if all 

 " the diseases were reduced to definite and certain species, with as 

 " much accuracy as the botanists have done with regard to the descrip- 

 " tion of plants, t" Many were the opinions which had been given re- 

 spefting the best plan of nosology. Some classed the diseases (the first 



* Quoiqae il a fait de louables efforts, pour substituer des plantes indigenes aiix etran- 

 geres, nous ne pouvons dissimuler, que cette produftion est peu digne de son auteur. Sec 

 Eloge de M. deLinne, par M, Vicq^d'Azyr, in tlie Histoire de la Societe de Medicine, 

 vol. ii. A Paris, 17S0, in quarto. 



f Expedit, ut morbi omnes ad definitas et certas species revocentur, eadem prorsus diligen- 

 tia ac ajt^iSsr*, qua id fadtum videmus a botanicis in suis phytologiis. 



F f and 



