HISTORY OF BOTANY. 
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56 
also raised him to greatness. He was born at Zurith in 1516, and in- 
tended at first to study divinity. He came to Strasbourg , but so great 
was then his poverty, that he thought himself very fortunate in being 
received as servitor to a professor. Love became the umpire of his 
destiny, and directed all his subsequent enterprizes. He entered the 
state of matrimony in the 20th year of his age, though without having 
wherewithal to support himself. His poverty rose to the higheft pitch. 
He resolved to quit the theological career which he had hitherto pur- 
sued. He went to study physic at Montpellier ; was made doftor, and 
afterwards professor of physic in his native place. No country but 
Switzerland could have furnished him with better opportunities of 
making botanical observations, nor did Gesner let them escape. 
Among his botanical works there is a remarkable catalogue of plants*. 
His great philological knowledge first enabled him to give them a no- 
menclature in several languages. He was also the first who introduced 
the method of classifying plants by their flowers and fruit. No literatus 
ofhis age was more diligent and more fertile than Gesner ; and the nu- 
merous works which he published, were, as I may say, but a beginning 
of his scientific harvest. He left behind a much superior number 
of writings, part printed, part in manuscript. He was prevented 
finishing them by the plague, which swept away his valuable existence 
in 1565, in the forty-ninth year of his age. 
After the Hessian literatus E. Cordus, who was the first professor of 
physic in the university of Marburg, Gesner was also the first who 
cultivated a private botanical garden for his own use. But the first 
* Catalogus plantarum, Latine, Grtece, Germanice, et Gallice, Tigur. 1542, in quarto 
His posthumous works were published by Schmidel, under the title of “ Gesneri Opera 
“ Botanica, Noritnberga, 1754 and 1759,” z vol. folio. 
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