784 
Notes  on  Ancient  Medicine.  \  Am  Jour\Ekann- 
l       Nov.,  1921. 
Moderation  in  the  use  of  medicines  (or  "physick")  is  empha- 
sized by  one  writer:  "A  discreet  and  godly  physician  doth  first  en- 
deavor te  expell  a  disease  by  medicinall  diet,  then  by  pure  medi- 
cine *  *  *  He  that  may  be  cured  by  diet,  must  not  meddle  with 
physick  *  *  *  Whosoever  takes  much  physick  in  his  youth, 
shall  soon  bewail  it  in  his  old  age,  purgative  physick  especially  which 
doth  much  debilitate  nature." 
It  was  at  one  time  an  accepted  theory  that  each  locality  provided 
a  medicinal  substance  for  each  diseased  condition  occurring  therein, 
and  those  who  adhered  to  this  theory  objected  strenuously  to  im- 
porting medicines  from  distant  lands.  By  the  terms  "simple"  was 
understood  a  single  plant,  or  a  medicine  prepared  from  such  a 
plant,  while  compounds  were  what  the  name  indicates.  Burton 
states  that  many  people  favor  the  "exotick  simples,"  such  as, 
"sena,  cassia  out  of  Egypt,  rubarbe  from  Bombay,  aloes  from  Zo- 
cotra,  turbith,  agarick,  mirabolanes,  hermodactils  from  the  East  In- 
dies, tobacco  from  the  West,  and  some  as  far  as  China,  hellebore 
from  the  Anticyrse,  or  that  of  Austria  which  bears  the  purple 
flower." 
In  condemning  the  use  of  imported  and  strange  drugs  we  note 
that,  "Many  an  old  wife  or  country  woman  doth  often  more  good 
with  a  few  well-known  and  common  garden  herbs,  than  our  bumbast 
physicians,  with  all  their  rare,  prodigious,  sumptuous,  far-fetched, 
conjecturall  medicines."  This  would  suggest  a  tendency  to  use 
European  medicines  in  preference  to  foreign  ones ;  nevertheless,  the 
domestication  of  plants  from  distant  lands  was  commended  and 
practiced  in  the  public  gardens  at  Padua,  Leyden,  Montpelier,  Ox- 
ford, and  Nuremberg.  This  culture  was  approved  in  order  that 
"the  young  students  may  be  the  sooner  informed  in  the  knowledge 
of  them  which,  as  Fuschius  holds,  is  most  necessary  to  that  exquisite 
manner  of  curing,  and  as  great  a  shame  for  a  physician  not  to  ob- 
serve them,  as  for  a  workman  not  to  know  his  tools." 
Galeottus  appears  to  have  recognized  some  800  simples  includ- 
ing those  classed  as  alteratives  which  he  defines  as  remedies  that  "by 
a  secret  force  and  speciall  quality,  expell  future  diseases,  perfectly 
cure  those  which  are,  and  many  such  incurable  effects." 
The  water  lily  was  esteemed  for  its  anaphrodisiac  qualities,  cab- 
bage was  thought  to  resist  drunkenness  and,  "that  which  is  more  to 
be  admired,  that  such  and  such  plants  have  a  peculiar  vertue  to  such 
