Druidical Botany. |^ 
DioscoRiDEs and Pliny, famed for hav^ 
ing cured the foldiers of 'Julius Ccejar, on 
'die Rhine, of the Scelotyrbe, or the difeafe 
foppofed to be our fea fcurvy. The ufes of 
this herb were thoaght to have been derived 
from the Britons 5 the name fuggefted this 
notion y but later etymologifts have found 
a different derivation : i. e. Bnt. ccjifo- 
lidare Tan. Deus^ Ica f. Hica, cjet'iio^ 
iinde, Britannic a dicitur herba, qiicc Jir- 
met et confolidat denies vacillantes^\ The 
commentators have apphed the defcrip- 
tion given by thofe tvvo antients, to a 
variety of fimples. By fome, it has been 
thought to be the polygojjum perjicaria, or 
fpotted arfmart : by pthers, the primula 
auricula^ or Vv^ild auricula : by our own firft 
herbalift. Turner, who obferved it plenti- 
fully in Friejlandy the fcene of Pliny s obfer- 
vations on its effects, the polygonum hijior- 
ta, or biftort : at length, Abraham TvIunT'- 
JNG, a Dutch phyfician, publifhed a treatife 
in 1 68 1, profefiedly to prove, that the Bri- 
tannic a v/as the hydrolapatkum. magnum y ( ru-^ 
* Ray, Eljl. Plant, i. p. 172. 
mex 
