says “ Tts an admirable remedy against wounds and 
gun-shots, wounds made with poisoned weapons, 
it draws out splinters, broken bones, &c. The dose 
from half a dram to a dram. They say the goats 
and deers in Crete, being wounded with arrows, 
eat this herb, which makes the arrows fall out of 
themselves ; and from thence came the tale in Vir- 
gil, about iEneas.”(book 12). It has not been con- 
tinued in our modern Dispensatories, but Dr. 
Lindley notices it in his Flora Medica, as an aro- 
matic and tonic, under the name Amaracus dictam- 
nus, that now adopted by continental botanists. 
Turner, in his “ Homish apothecarye or homely 
pliysick booke, for all the grefes and diseases of 
the bodye,” published in 1568, hands down to us 
a relation of all the merits attributed to the plant 
by the ancients, whereby we have a clear view of 
the continuance of those extravagant notions set 
forth by the early Eastern writers. A little know- 
ledge, ripened in a warm imagination, into the 
most ridiculous speculations, and then dissemi- 
nated with the inlluence given by popular philoso- 
phers, became the adopted opinions of the early 
Greeks, and indeed, of the ancient Romans also; 
— opinions which seem never to have been shaken, 
till the invention of printing began to reflect the 
light of science and truth from mind to mind; not 
losing radiance by its transmission, but collecting 
fresh rays in its progress, down to the present time. 
At what point this advancement of knowledge will 
cease to operate, no one is permitted to foreknow, 
nor can the ultimate perfection of human intellect 
be conceived. 
