in, or if the sore places be anointed with the iuyce 
of it, or with an oyntment made of it. It is good 
for al the diseses of y e brest and lunges, for it pur- 
geth y e lunges and brest of all filthy matter. It is 
very good to be layd vpon pestilent sores to ripe 
them, and to breke them, in so much y* dedly sores 
be anointed and plastered therewith al, in iii houres 
as y e later writers hold, the same wil vanishe and 
go away, or ellis at the lest be resolved or made 
ripe.” 
Seeing that with Turner dawned the light of 
botanical knowledge, it may not be uninteresting to 
trace, hastily, the chequered steps of the life of this 
eminent, although nearly forgotten scholar. 
Pulteney, from whom we shall here select, says, 
the history of English Botany in the time of 
Turner, from its imperfect, and even barbarous 
state, may, perhaps not unaptly, be considered as 
the fabulous age of the science among us. With 
Turner, however, arrived the true era of its birth in 
England. He was born at Morpeth, about the year 
1515, and educated at Cambridge, where he ac- 
quired great reputation for his learning ; but, 
whilst a student of Pembroke Hall, he complains 
that “ Whereas I could learn never one Greke, 
neither Latin, nor English, name, even among the 
physicians, of any herbe or tree ; such was the ig- 
norance at that time, and as yet there was no Eng- 
lish Herbal, but one all full of unlearned cacogra- 
phies and falsely named herbes.” Turner, as was 
then not uncommon, became a divine as well as 
physician; was zealous in support of the reforma- 
tion; was imprisoned, and then became a voluntary 
To be continued on the second page of No. 797. 
