Abstract
THE herbals which have come down to us from pre-Benaissance days offer a vast field for inquiry, as yet imperfectly explored. Dr. Charles Singer's new memoir not only affords invaluable clues to the labyrinth of codices which confronts the perplexed student, but also illuminates the subject by treating it on broad lines and relating it to the main currents of thought. Dr. Singer believes that the herbal—or descriptive drug-list of vegetable remedies—had already assumed its definitive form in the fourth century before Christ, though no work so early in date is extant. We owe our first knowledge of Greek herbal literature to the “Historia Plantarum” of Theophrastus. The Ninth Book of this work, which may perhaps date from a period later than the death of the reputed author in 287 B.C., is believed to be a compilation from which we may gain an idea of the nature of the earliest herbals.
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References
"The Herbal in Antiquity and its Transmission to Later Ages". By Charles Singer . (Reprinted from the Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. 47, Part 1., 1927). Pp. 52 + 10 plates.
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Manuscript Herbals1. Nature 122, 655–656 (1928). https://doi.org/10.1038/122655a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/122655a0