INTRODUCTION TO BOTANY. 
9 
some in the oriental languages, which he had acquired in 
his travels. After these names he adds a short description 
of the plant, the place of growth, and the properties of 
it. Some of the critics have supposed that this work is 
supposititious, and written long after his time. Johnson, 
who edited the second edition of Gerardc’s Herbal, imagined 
it was the translation of a work written by some physician 
of Constantinople in the eighth century, but Fabricius 
thinks this conjecture is not probable; indeed internal evi- 
dence seems against it. Apulejus was a heathen priest, 
well read in his religion, and much attached to it, as well 
by natural inclination as from the persecutions he suffered 
from the Christian relations of his wife, who accused him 
of magic, and of obtaining her hand and fortune by sor- 
cery ; now the work is filled with those modes of exhibiting 
remedies, which, although only intended by the practitioner 
to aid their operation by the power of fancy, are usually 
considered by others as superstitious, and even magical. 
Galen, who was born about 133 years after Christ, was 
contemporary with Apulejus, and became so celebrated as 
a physician and medical writer, as to have entirely ruled in 
the schools of medicine, to the exclusion of almost every 
other author. His industry in acquiring a knowledge of 
the materia medica, including medical botany, was very 
great, as he sailed to Lemnos to investigate the terra 
Lemnia in its native bed, to Cyprus to visit the mines and 
collect cadmia, pompholyx, diphryges, chalcanthum, and 
other minerals; as also to Cilicia, Phoenicia, Crete, and 
Egypt. His writings are as remarkable for their diffuse 
style, and his continual digressions, as those of Pliny are 
for their conciseness; and it is not easy to say which is 
the most tiresome to the reader, or requires the steadiest 
attention to peruse. Galen principally treats of plants in 
the sixth, seventh, and eighth books of his work, On 
Simples, in which he mentions the uses of about 450 me- 
dical plants. Pie also occasionally treats of several others 
in different parts of his works. It was his great object to 
account for their effects from the second and third qualities, 
as they were called; that is to say, from the degree of their 
dryness or moisture, and heat and coldness, of each of which 
he distinguishes four degrees. In his introduction, he 
writes against those authors who had attempted to describe 
plants, and thinks the knowledge of them is better acquired 
by tradition. When we consider the great authority which 
the writings of Galen bore in the schools of medicine for 
