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  • Figures representing the investigation of nature; in the background, Pliny the elder being killed while investigating Vesuvius during its eruption. Engraving by J. Wangner after G. Eichler the younger, ca. 1759.
  • Origanum dictamnus L. Lamiaceae Dittany of Crete, Hop marjoram. Distribution: Crete. Culpeper (1650) writes: ‘... hastens travail [labour] in women, provokes the Terms [menstruation] . See the Leaves.’ Under 'Leaves' he writes: ‘Dictamny, or Dittany of Creet, ... brings away dead children, hastens womens travail, brings away the afterbirth, the very smell of it drives away venomous beasts, so deadly an enemy is it to poison, it’s an admirable remedy against wounds and Gunshot, wounds made with poisoned weapons, draws out splinters, broken bones etc. They say the goats and deers in Creet, being wounded with arrows, eat this herb, which makes the arrows fall out of themselves.' Dioscorides’ Materia Medica (c. 100 AD, trans. Beck, 2005), Pliny the Elder’s Natural History and Theophrastus’s Enquiry into Plants all have this information, as does Vergil’s Aeneid where he recounts how Venus produced it when her son, Aeneas, had received a deadly wound from an arrow, which fell out on its own when the wound was washed with it (Jashemski, 1999). Dioscorides attributes the same property to ‘Tragium’ or ‘Tragion’ which is probably Hypericum hircinum (a St. John’s Wort): ‘Tragium grows in Crete only ... the leaves and the seed and the tear, being laid on with wine doe draw out arrow heads and splinteres and all things fastened within ... They say also that ye wild goats having been shot, and then feeding upon this herb doe cast out ye arrows.’ . It has hairy leaves, in common with many 'vulnaries', and its alleged ability to heal probably has its origin in the ability of platelets to coagulate more easily on the hairs (in the same way that cotton wool is applied to a shaving cut to hasten clotting). Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Historia naturalis / Di C. Plinio Secondo tradocta di lingua latina in fiorentina per Christophoro Landino fiorentino al serenissimo Fernando Re di Napoli.
  • [Phytobasanos] sive plantarum aliqvot historia. In qva describvntvr diversi generis plantæ veriores, ac magis facie, viribúsque respondentes antiquorum Theophrasti, Diocoridis, Plinij, Galeni, aliorúmque delineationibus, ab alijs hucusque non animaduersæ / Fabio Colvmna avctore. Accessit etiam piscivm aliqvot, plantarúmque nouarum historia eodem auctore.
  • [Phytobasanos] sive plantarum aliqvot historia. In qva describvntvr diversi generis plantæ veriores, ac magis facie, viribúsque respondentes antiquorum Theophrasti, Diocoridis, Plinij, Galeni, aliorúmque delineationibus, ab alijs hucusque non animaduersæ / Fabio Colvmna avctore. Accessit etiam piscivm aliqvot, plantarúmque nouarum historia eodem auctore.
  • [Phytobasanos] sive plantarum aliqvot historia. In qva describvntvr diversi generis plantæ veriores, ac magis facie, viribúsque respondentes antiquorum Theophrasti, Diocoridis, Plinij, Galeni, aliorúmque delineationibus, ab alijs hucusque non animaduersæ / Fabio Colvmna avctore. Accessit etiam piscivm aliqvot, plantarúmque nouarum historia eodem auctore.
  • C. Plinii Secondi Naturalis historiae libri xxxvii / e castigationibus Hermolai Barbari ac codicis in Alemania impressi quam emendatissime editi. Additio indice q[ue] copiosissimo, figurisq[ue] ad singulorum librorum materiam aptissimis.
  • Caius Plinius Secundus. Woodcut.
  • Caius Plinius Secundus. Lithograph by Dumont.
  • Caius Plinius Secundus senior. Stipple engraving by F. W. Bollinger.
  • Caius Plinius Secundus. Line engraving.
  • In a chamber containing stuffed animals, a globe and astrological devices Hudibras, about to draw his sword, startles Sidrophel and Whacum. Engraving by William Hogarth.
  • Liber theoricae necnon practicae Alsaharavii ... qui vulgo Acararius dicitur: iam summa diligentia et cura depromptus in lucem [a Sigismundo Grimmo] / [Abū al-Qāim Khalaf ibn ʻAbbās al-Zahrāw-i].