54 
HISTORY OF BOTANY. 
was the least of all concerns. The Mahometans and Arabs were the 
only nations who would give them a partial reception. But they were 
fonder of practical physic than botany, which was almost tota !y forlorn, 
and abandoned of course. 
After a lapse of near fifteen ages, botany was rescued with other 
sciences in the middle of the fifteenth century from her widowed state. 
The printing and engraving on w’ood, and the discovery of America , came 
to her assistance. The Germans were the foremost to draw her from 
oblivion. The first representation of plants in wood-cuts made its ap- 
pearance at Mentz towards the latter end of the fifteenth century, and 
an Italian Flora in 1485 was printed at Padua*. 
In botany the ancients could less be the guides and patterns of the 
moderns than in the other sciences. The latter were too little ac- 
quainted with the discoveries of the former; their descriptions were 
unintelligible, and mostly related to unknown southern plants. They 
had no classification, no system ; it was not known where they classed 
this or that plant, which of either they meant in their description, and 
of course their discoveries remained unprofited by and lost. Hence it 
became necessary to regenerate, as it were, the whole science of bo- 
tany, and to colleft and describe fresh materials for that purpose. 
In this point the Germans likewise were the first in setting an ex- 
ample to other nations. A native of Mentz , of the name of Otho 
Brunf els, professor at Strasbourg , and afterwards first physician in 
the city of Bern , who died in the year 1534, became the first modern 
* Hortus Sanitatis seu de Herbis ac Plantis, in quarto, printed at Mentz, by P. Shoeffer. 
Jierbarius Pataviac impressus, anno Domini 1485, also with wood-cuts. 
restorer 
