Galen, the celebrated physician, wrote extensively 
on the medicinal properties of vegetables, and 
added greatly to Dioscorides and Pliny. The suc- 
ceeding twelve hundred years present little more 
than a blank to the scientific mind. About the 
year 1430 printing was invented, and knowledge 
darted to all quarters, as rays of light. In France 
and Germany, several kerbals appeared almost im- 
mediately, but it was not till the year 1551 that 
an English work of originality was published. 
This was from the pen of Dr. William Turner, 
of whom much may be said, as a man of talent. 
Neither he nor the Greeks studied plants for the 
sole purpose of classification and naming, but to 
discover their virtues, which it may be hoped will 
again claim attention, when there shall have been 
enough of sorting and distribution to satisfy 
modern science. 
We give a specimen of Turner’s work. On our 
native Pimpernel he says, ‘the iuyce gargled in 
the throte and mouth, purgeth the hede of fleme, 
and the same poured into the nose thrylle, that is 
of the olher syde of the head there y e tuth akeis 
in, taketh y e payne awaye.’ 
After Turner, Gerard, in 1597, and Parkinson, 
in 1640, are prominent herbalists, and may be 
called the last of the old school. Philip Miller, 
in 1724, published the first edition of his Diction- 
ary, from which a new botanical era arose. 
Monelli’s Pimpernel, though not boasting the 
virtues of Turner’s, is a beautiful ornament for 
summer culture in the borders. It strikes readily 
from cuttings, but it must have winter protection. 
Hort. Kew. 2, v. 1, 316. 
