AND. CRATANDER

To the Reader, Greeting,

A decorative initial E contains a portrait of a bearded man.

I present to you, candid Reader, the histories of Aristotle and Theophrastus, which encompass almost everything that God, the greatest and best, has exhibited for man to contemplate and utilize: all creatures, I say, both those endowed with sense, which are called animals, and those lacking sense, which they call plants. Here, by Hercules, there is not even the slightest gru a mote or speck so humble, so abject, and so small, in which that highest creator is not to be admired in the highest degree, and for which there is not a most ample use. Indeed, there scarcely exists any other thing that more excites and inflames the glory and love of God, the parent of all, in the hearts of men. And the fact that the knowledge and meditation of such things pertains to every kind of philosophy, but especially to medicine, and also to the whole...