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INTRODUCTION TO BOTANY. 9
some in the oriental languages, which he had acquired in
his travels. After these names he adds a short description
of the plant, the place of growth, and the properties of
it. Some of the critics have supposed that this work is
supposititious, and written long after his time. Johnson,
wlio edited the second edition of Gerarde's Herbal, imagined
it was the translation of a work written by some physician
of Constantinople in the eighth century, but Fabricius
thinks this conjecture is not probable ; indeed internal evidence
seems against it. Apulejus was a heathen priest,
well read in his religion, and much attached to it, as well
by natural inclination as from the persecutions he suffered
from the Christian relations of his wife, who accused him
of magic, and of obtaining her hand and fortune by sorcer}^;
now the work is filled with those modes of exhibiting
remedies, which, although only intended by the practitioner
to aid their operation by the power of fancy, are usually
considered by others as superstitious, and even magical.
Galen, who was born about 133 years after Christ, was
contemporary with Apulejus, and became so celebrated as
a physician and medical writer, as to have entirely ruled in
the schools of medicine, to the exclusion of almost every
other author. His industry in acquiring a knowledge of
the materia medica, including medical botany, was very
great, as he sailed to Lemnos to investigate the terra
Lemnia in its native bed, to Cyprus to visit the mines and
collect cadmia, pompholyx, diphryges, chalcanthum, and
other minerals; as also to Cilicia, Phoenicia, Crete, and
Egypt. His writings are as remarkable for their diffuse
style, and his continual digressions, as those of Pliny are
for their conciseness ; and it is not easy to say which is
the most tiresome to the reader, or requires the steadiest
attention to peruse. Galen principally treats of plants in
the sixth, seventh, and eighth books of his work. On
Simples, in which he mentions the uses of about 450 medical
plants. He also occasionally treats of several others
in different parts of his works. It was his great object to
account for their effects from the second and third qualities,
as they were called ; that is to say, from the degree of their
dryness or moisture, and heat and coldness, of each of which
he distinguishes four degrees. In his introduction, he
writes against those authors who had attempted to describe
plants, and thinks the knowledge of them is better acquired
by tradition. When we consider the great authority which
the writings of Galen bore ip the schools of medicine for