Cæsalpin. 36. Cæsalpin was not only a botanist, but greater in this than in any other of the sciences he embraced. He was the first (the writings of Gesner, if they go so far, being in his time unpublished) who endeavoured to establish a natural order of classification on philosophical principles. He founded it on the number, figure, and position of the fructifying parts, observing the situation of the calix and flower relatively to the germen, the divisions of the former, and in general what has been regarded in later systems as the basis of arrangement. He treats of trees and of herbs separately, as two grand divisions, but under each follows his own natural system. The distinction of sexes he thought needless in plants, on account of their greater simplicity; though he admits it to exist in some, as in the hemp and the juniper. His treatise on Plants, in 1583, is divided into sixteen books; in the first of which he lays down the principles of vegetable anatomy and physiology. Many ideas, says Du Petit Thouars, are found there of which the truth was long afterwards recognised. He analysed the structure of seeds, which he compares to the eggs of animals; an analogy, however, which had occurred to Empedocles among the ancients. “One page alone,” the same writer observes, “in the dedication of Cæsalpin to the Duke of Tuscany, concentrates the principles of a good botanical system so well that notwithstanding all the labours of later botanists, nothing material could be added to his sketch, and if this one page out of all the writings of Cæsalpin remained, it would be enough to secure him an immortal reputation.”[1400] Cæsalpin unfortunately gave no figures of plants, which may have been among the causes that his system was so long overlooked.
[1400] Biogr. Univ. Sprengel, after giving an analysis of the system of Cæsalpin, concludes: En primi systematis carpologici specimen, quod licet imperfectum sit, ingenii tamen summi monumentum et aliorum omnium ad Gærtnerium usque exemplar est, p. 430.
Dalechamps; Bauhin. 37. The Historia Generalis Plantarum by Dalechamps, in 1587, contains 2731 figures, many of which, however, appear to be repetitions. These are divided into eighteen classes according to their form and size, but with no natural method. His work is imperfect and faulty; most of the descriptions are borrowed from his predecessors.[1401] Tabernæmontanus, in a book in the German language, has described 5800 species, and given 2480 figures.[1402] The Phytopinax of Gerard Bauhin (Basle, 1596) is the first important work of one who, in conjunction with his brother John, laboured for forty years in the advancement of botanical knowledge. It is a catalogue of 2460 plants, including, among about 250 others that were new, the first accurate description of the potato, which, as he informs us, was already cultivated in Italy.[1403]
[1401] Sprengel, 432.
[1402] Id. 496.
[1403] Id. 451.
Gerard’s Herbal. 38. Gerard’s Herbal, published in 1597, was formed on the basis of Dodoens, taking in much from Lobel and Clusius; the figures are from the blocks used by Tabernæmontanus. It is not now esteemed at all by botanists, at least in this first edition; “but,” says Pulteney, “from its being well timed, from its comprehending almost the whole of the subjects then known, by being written in English, and ornamented with a more numerous set of figures than had ever accompanied any work of the kind in this kingdom, it obtained great repute.”[1404]
[1404] Hist. Sketch, p. 122.
Sect. III.—On Anatomy and Medicine.
Fallopius, Eustachius, and other Anatomists—State of Medicine.