Living Images of Plants

MEDICINE

A First, we cannot even know whether the goods brought from afar are genuine or adulterated. This is most obvious because how many of our people have ever seen the Indian leaf original: folium Indum, likely malabathrum or cinnamon leaf., the Indian nut original: Nux Indica, which could refer to the coconut or nutmeg., fragrant rush, cyperus, cardamom, cinnamon, sweet flag, balsam, aloeswood original: Agollochum, an aromatic wood., canchamon An Arabian tree resin., kyphi A complex ancient incense used as medicine., or elecampane? In short, all those things which are held as the most important in the apothecary shops today. This is especially true if the judges and inspectors appointed to these matters are men who have never spent a single good hour investigating simples Medicinal plants used on their own, rather than as part of a complex mixture.. They are sometimes so unlearned that they could be proven never to have read ten pages in Pliny or Dioscorides Foundational Roman and Greek authorities on natural history and medicine.; indeed, some of them openly admit it.

If they cite their Mesue Yuhanna ibn Masawayh, a famous 9th-century Persian physician whose works were standard in European pharmacies. to me, who marks things with his own notes—describing things like "white, gummy Turpeth," and so on (for that is how they speak)—it means as much to me as when Pliny or Strabo describe India to me as something to be seen. Although I have never laid eyes on it, I can measure it out in distances and miles according to Ptolemy An ancient geographer; the author is comparing theoretical book-learning to actual sight., calculating how many thousands of miles it is, even down to the smallest minutes of degrees; yet, if I happened to see it by chance, I would not recognize it. Truly, that is dreaming rather than holding an exact knowledge of the thing.

I will not single anyone out by name, but I have known those who, while boasting that they knew the natures and forms of things most exactly, recognized nothing once the items were brought before them. There are some who do not even have a proper view of parsley, though every cook from the tavern and every kitchen-maid who prepares feasts knows it. It is the mark of an experienced physician to hold a herb in his mind not just by its name, or whatever that simple thing may be, but he ought to have handled, seen, tasted, and smelled it. B This is why even Dioscorides boasts that he wrote his history not from the accounts of others, but that he saw, touched, and tested everything in its own place.

Finally, and this is the greatest point of all: things from across the sea are purchased at a high price. But we are not as rich as Croesus or Midas Legendary kings known for their immense wealth.. Therefore, it would be foolish to spend money on things fetched from far away when you have at home what you can buy for less—sometimes even for free—and which, moreover, agrees more with your nature and temperament. Furthermore, a large part of humanity, and men of every rank, shrink from those exotic drugs; and the more studious a man is of his own health—or rather, the more healthily and purely he lives—the more he is nauseated by and detests them.

I have seen those who, when suffering from the greatest illnesses, rejected all drugs. I have seen those who would sooner die than swallow pills or an electuary A medicinal paste made by mixing powders with honey or syrup.. If you had offered these people some herb or root, they would not have refused it. What I say is so well known that it hardly needs proof, as there are many thousands today who agree with me. On the other hand, simple herbs, roots, seeds, flowers, the fruits and leaves of trees, and whatever else belongs to our land—whether boiled, roasted, fried, steeped, dried in the sun, crushed, or pressed—when combined with honey, which is produced in abundance in the German lands; or sugar, which also does not cost so much and is sought from nearby Spain; or with vinegar, mead, or water—these are not so much food for man as they are a life-saving medicine.

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