Botany.

Date:
1826
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Botany. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/72 (page 371)
    writers, the one published at the end of the fifteenth century, the latter at the commencement of the sixteenth, put an end to the delusion under which the world had labored for so long a time. These men fearlessly tore the mask from before the face of the impostors of their day, and boldly succeeded in convincing the world that the ignorance of antiquity had been mistaken for the experience of ages ; and a new impulse was given to the pursuits of naturalists, not only by these writers, but also by the declaration of Collenuti, an earnest defender, indeed, of the originality of Pliny, that 1 non satis esse ad her- bariam perdiscendam tradendamque, herbarios scriptores legere, plantarum videre picturas, Graeca vocabula inspicere, magistri unius verbis addictum esse, sed rusticosmontanosque homines interrogare oportere/ 47. To particularise all the obscure writers, who existed up to this period, would be an un¬ profitable waste of space and attention. All kinds of learning had been brought to so low a state of degradation, by the insane and stupid madness of the worthless men who sanctified their acts under the cloak of religion, and who, in their pretended zeal against paganism, de¬ stroyed all the fountains of knowledge, that there was scarcely an author upon botanical matters, during this long period, who deserves to be handed down to posterity. Between the first and the-early part of the sixteenth century, na¬ tural history may be considered a blank, during which that description of learning was buried in a deep trance. In the strong language of one of the earliest revivers of botanical science: ‘ Those writers who did occupy themselves with the subject, especially Matthaeus Sylvaticus, and Simon Januensis, deserve the execration of all posterity, for their worthless compilations and treacherous translations of the ancients/ 48. The second period presents us with more promising views. All science began to revive, and monasteries were no longer the exclusive seat of human knowledge. Brunfelsius, Gesner, Fuchsius, Dodonaeus, the ever memorable Clusius, and the great Bauhin, opened the path to the present state of botanical science. 49. Otto Brunfelsius, son of a cooper, was born at Maynz, at the end of the fifteenth cen¬ tury. He was first a Carthusian friar, and be¬ came, soon after, cantor (precentor) in Strasburg. In his work he has given the first figures of plants, and he was also the first botanist in Ger¬ many. The drawings are not very good, and do not in the least correspond with his own de¬ scriptions. 50. Hieronymus Bock, was born at Heides- bach, in Deux Ponts, 1498. He died in the fifty-sixth year of his age, the 21st of June, 1554. He changed his name, according to the fashion of his age, to the Greek name Tragus. In three books of his work he treated pretty accurately of those plants which grow in Germany, and represented the described plants in 567 figures, which are not bad. It is an objection made to him, that he neglected the virtues of the plants, though he knew them perfectly well, and that he used the writings of the ancients too little. He wrote a history of plants, of which many editions have appeared in German, French, and Latin. He likewise wrote notes to Dioscoridcs, Galen, and Hippocrates, on which account he entered into a long dispute with the famous physician and philologist, John Heynbut or Hagenbut, who likewise called himself Cornarus. Cornarus published a treatise against him, en¬ titled Vulpecula Excoriata. The botanist, Fuch¬ sius, answered in another, with the title, Cornarus Furiens ; after which Cornarus finished the dis¬ pute with the publication of a work, which he termed Mitra, S. Brabyla pro Vulpecula Exco¬ riata Asservanda. 51. Peter Andreas Matthiolus, a physician at Sienna, was born in the year 1500, and died at Trent, in 1577, of the plague. He had carefully studied the works of the ancients, especially of Dioscorides. His Kraeuterbuch (work on plants) was written originally in Italian, but we have French and German translations of it. 52. Matthias de Lobel, physician to king James I. of Great Britain, was born at Brussels, in Flanders, in 1538, and died in London, 1616. Together with Peter Pona, a physician in Pro¬ vence, he wrote the Adversaria, part of his greater work. He says that this physician sent him many rare plants. Some assure us that he has in his works given many ideal figures of plants; and he has described several as grow¬ ing wild in Britain, which after him nobody could ever find. 53. Charles Clusius, or Charles de FEcluse, was born at Arras, in the Netherlands, 1526. His parents wished him to become a lawyer, and he went with this design to Louvain. But he presently changed his mind, and, from his gr. at love of botany, soon undertook the most tedious and troublesome journeys through Spain, Por¬ tugal, France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, and Hungary. In his twenty-fourth year he became dropsical, of which, however, he was cured by the use of succory, recommended to him by the famous physician, Rondeletius. In his thirty-ninth year, in Spain, he fractured his right arm close above the elbow, falling with his horse, and soon after he broke his right thigh. In his fifty-fifth year, at Vienna, he sprained his left foot, and eight years afterwards dislocated his hip. This last dislocation was neglected by his physician, and he had the misfortune to walk for the remainder of his life on crutches. The great pain and difficulty he had thus to suffer when walking, prevented him from taking the necessary exercise, in consequence of which he was af¬ fected with hernia, obstructions in his abdomen, and calculous complaints. Thus miserable and unhealthy, tired of the court of the emperor, where he had resided for fourteen years, and finding, besides, the superintendence over the gardens there too great a burden, he accepted, in the year 1593, an invitation as professor at Leyden, where he died, April 6th 1609. Clusius was the greatest genius of his age, and prosecuted the study of botany with an enthusiastic zeal, and* a perseverance which was not equalled by any preceding philosophers, or by that of any of his followers. His works exhibit a great botanist, and they will always remain valuable and indis¬ pensably necessary. The figures annexed to