MITCHAM : ITS PHYSIC GARDENERS AND PLANTS. 
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MITCHAM: ITS PHYSIC GARDENERS AND MEDICINAL PLANTS. 
[The following remarks on Mitcham and its products, embraces two of a 
series of articles now in course of publication in the Pharmaceutical Journal, 
from the pen of its Editor, Mr. Jacob Bell. The}- will be continued in our 
next. We hope at some future time to be able to give sketches of the Ameri- 
can Physic Gardens conducted by the Shakers at Lebanon, N. Y. — Editor.] 
More than 2000 years ago the physicians of Greece were sup- 
plied with herbs, of which their Materia Medica chiefly consisted, 
by a class of persons called p^otopoi (rhizotomi or root-cutters,) 
who occupied themselves with the collection and sale of roots and 
herbs. They are mentioned by Theophrastus in connection with 
the fyap/.iaxoTtco'kat (pharmacopolce or pharmacopolists.) Most of 
them were illiterate and superstitious, and ascribed magical vir- 
tues to the roots and herbs which they collected. 
Among the Romans these cullers of simples were termed her- 
barii (herbarists,) and, if we are to believe Pliny, they were a 
sad set of knaves. 
At the present day, and in our country, the rhizotomi of the 
Greeks and the herbarii of the Romans are represented by a class 
of persons called simplers, who go about the country collecting 
those medicinal herbs which grow wild, and the demand for which 
is insufficient to induce the dealers to cultivate them. The plants 
thus collected are sold chiefly to the herbalists, by whom the pro- 
fession and public are supplied. 
But those medicinal plants for which there is a sufficient de- 
mand, and which can be grown in this country, are cultivated in 
physic gardens or physic grounds, by persons called physic gar- 
deners or herb growers. 
Although the cultivation of medicinal plants is carried on in 
various parts of England, yet more land is employed in this way 
in Surrey than in any other country ; and by far the greatest part 
of our physic grounds lie in the parish of Mitcham, and its neigh- 
borhood, about nine miles from London. The soil of this place 
is a rich black mould. 
The cultivation of physical plants at Mitcham commenced about 
a century ago. Lyson, who wrote in 1796, says, that forty years 
before his time there was only a few acres employed in the culti- 
vation of medicinal herbs in this parish ; whereas, at the time he 
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