INTRODUCTION TO BOTANY. 
5 
2. The Rise and Progress of Botany , particularly in England . 
The modern botanists, who are overwhelmed with the 
continually increasing number of new plants offered to their 
view, and the necessity of learning the ever-varying no- 
menclature, are accused, perhaps with some justice, of 
paying less attention to the uses of plants than they ought; 
and, on the other hand, the ancients seem to have had no 
other idea of botany than as being the knowledge of the 
grains, pulse, potherbs, 8c c. of use in domestic economy, 
or of those plants which chance, or experiments made in 
the great hierarchal colleges of Persia or Egypt, had shown 
to be of use in the cure of the sick and hurt; for it ap- 
pears by the Greek authors, whose writings Jhave survived 
the barbarism which took place in Europe on the sub- 
version of the Western Empire by the northern nations, 
that it was the intention of the early Greek writers, in their 
botanical works, rather to relate the uses or culture of 
plants, than to describe them so that posterity might be 
enabled to recognize them whenever they were met with. 
Hippocrates the Coan, the venerable father of medicine, 
the lineal descendant of that Esculapius whom the grati- 
tude of mankind had raised to divine honours, is the oldest 
author we possess, being born about four hundred and fifty 
years before Christ. Those who are versed in the history 
of medicine, well know the valuable use he made of the 
cases recorded in the temples of his ancestor, which were 
the public hospitals of antiquity, especially in respect to 
the prognosis of diseases. He has mentioned, in his the- 
rapeutic writings, the uses of about two hundred and forty 
plants; and he would have merited still more the thanks 
of mankind, if he had carefully described them, so that 
we might be certain of the species of plants which he in- 
tended by those names. — This task he seems to have left 
to Cratevas, of whose knowledge in botany he makes the 
most honourable mention. The loss of the works of Cra- 
tevas is much to be deplored, as they probably contained 
the description, or at least place of growth, of the plants 
mentioned by Hippocrates. 
The expansion of the human intellect which took place 
in consequence of the freedom of opinion that was allowed 
in Athens, under the mild but firm government of Pisis- 
tratus, by wdiich the factious demagogues and the priest 
of that city were restrained from persecuting every man 
