Botanik der Gegenwart und Vorzeit in culturhistoricher Entwickelung

Abstract

THIS volume is the first of a series of classical scientific works which the Chronica Botanica Company aims at bringing into fresh circulation. Jessen‘s book appeared in 1864, eleven years before the publication of the well-known "History of Botany" by Sachs ; but, while a copy of the original or of the English translation of the latter is to be found in every botanical library, Jessen‘s book will be known to very few in Britain. In actual fact the two books supplement one another to a very considerable degree, for, whereas Sachs' history begins with the early sixteenth century and gives little insight into the state of knowledge about plants among the ancients and during the Middle Ages, the first ten chapters of Jessen‘s book are devoted to these matters. After a brief consideration of the little that is known of plant studies among the early Indians, Egyptians and Babylonians, successive chapters deal with the state of botany among the Greeks and the Romans, during the early Christian era in Eastern and Western Europe and among the Arabs. A further four chapters dealing with the commencement of scientific studies in Western Europe brings the consideration to about the middle of the sixteenth century.

Botanik der Gegenwart und Vorzeit in culturhistoricher Entwickelung

Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der abendländischen Völker. Von Karl F. W. Jessen. (Pallas, Vol. 1.) Pp. xxii + 495. (Waltham, Mass. : Chronica Botanica Co. ; London : Wm. Dawson and Sons, Ltd., 1948.) 6 dollars.