Illustrations and Descriptions of Plants

Others have cultivated these matters, and others hold the governance,
Those Kings whom the Muses commend by this celebrated name.
Turn your eyes here, whoever is touched by diligent
Care to know the powers of herbs and the use of healing;
Chabrey Dominique Chabrey (1610–1667), a Genevan physician and botanist. will freely offer you welcome aid.
He will disclose the hidden fountain of the Medical Art:
From where you may seek assistance, medicines Pharmaca: drugs or medicinal remedies outstanding against foul diseases,
Cleansing the body of disease-causing juices,
Medicines driving out toxins with an antidote-like juice.
He will not feed your eyes and ears with empty pigment,
Nor his own mind with fiction: how the milky humor
Enters the deep recesses of the heart through winding paths;
By what wondrous gyre the red rivers A reference to the circulation of the blood, a relatively new scientific certainty in the mid-1600s. are rolled;
By what liquid the watered limbs of the body are moistened,
And which nutritious juice is more suited to those wings.
More useful teachings will bathe your mind with light,
By which the fountain and origin of the Medical Art will be unlocked
For you, and an ample storehouse will be opened:
From which you might weave delays for premature death,
And—all diseases having been driven from the body, with God’s help—
Prolong lives that were despaired of,
And lead a better life by the aid of the Art.
What thanks, Chabrey, for such a great gift
Will the triumphant, sacred crowd of Healers pour out to you,
To whom, with you as leader, the mysteries of things lie open,
And compendiums lay out an easy path for the history of plants,
And explain the way, and more deeply disclose the secrets
By which, performing near miracles, one may revive the sick,
Over whom premature death looms with its black claws?
All kinds of plants which the Indian has, which the scorched African,

And however many plants of America, the wandering inhabitant of the soil,
And however many the damp marsh, however many the green grasses of the field,
And the ornamental gardens with their cultivated mounds,
However many flowers they have, and however many stems the crags
Produce—this useful Book exhibits all the riches of the earth,
Published by your industry and care, Chabrey.
As long as the fat meadows are green with joyful grass,
As long as gardens are painted with beautiful-haired flowers,
As long as medicinal plants inhabit the inhospitable mountain places,
Your honor, name, and praises will always remain:
And you will always be celebrated by Physicians in ages to come,
Nor will long-lived antiquity be able to abolish your fame.
O our glory, use your happy fates:
And may God prolong your life for many years.
With the same foot you began, continue to cultivate the medical Art
Happily, and open the mysteries of deep things,
Which Mother Nature keeps hidden under a covering.
Thus may that great labor of yours bring back its rewards,
Thus may Posterity grant you deserved honors,
And may you engrave your name in the sacred temple of the Muses.
You also will always be celebrated in our songs,
Great Chabrey, as long as spirit rules these limbs of mine,
And breathes into my heart with its vital breath,
And my Muses are ready and elegant in Song.
Renowned glory, renewer of flower-bearing Pindus A mountain in Greece sacred to the Muses; used here to signify poetic and scientific inspiration.,
Live, Chabrey, for a long time, with the Fates applauding freely.
Live long, with great fame surviving after your passing.
And may this immortal Book live for eternal years,
Under whose guidance the equipped storehouse of Physicians will flourish,
And perform many miracles, once diseases are expelled.

One man can find more than another, but no one can find everything.

A decorative typographical ornament featuring symmetrical scrollwork, acanthus leaves, and a central stylized blossom.