John Frost

“ What the Greeks considered to be the Science of Botany was, in fact, that of Materia Medica, as the application of herbs to the purposes of medicine are the leading features of the works ascribed to Hippocrates and others, as we now have them collected together, from which it should be inferred that what is termed "Opera Hippocratis" for example, is not only the work of various persons, but even of different periods. ”

“ In giving a Course of Lectures on any Science, it is usual for the Lecturer to deliver an Introductory Discourse, in which he endeavours to call the attention of, his auditors to the antiquity of it, by tracing it to the remotest period of time that references will admit of; and it is not unfrequently contended, that the more ancient the date of the origin of his particular science is, the more likely it is to excite a degree of admiration in his auditors. ”

“ New fruits are by its means introduced, for it is the Botanist alone that can vouch for their character. But the principal use of Botany is in supplying us with medicines for the alleviation of disease; [7] and it will prove a national good, when it shall be made a part of the imperative duty of the Medical Practitioner to be acquainted with it; for there can be no doubt but that every country has plants indigenous to it for the cure of the maladies which may befal its inhabitants; for no person can suppose for a moment that the All-wise Creator has formed any thing without its use. ”

“ But it sometimes happens, that when men are endeavouring to stamp an imaginary value on any Science, by bringing forward the names of many of the Grecian and other schools, they find so much doubt connected with their history, that one can only be surprised that they can think themselves warranted in promulgating the pretensions of some of those very early aspirers to Science. ”

“ Whenever we investigate any subject relative to Natural Science, we find the greatest regularity and order pervading every class of bodies, whether organized or unorganized, By the former we mean such as have the actions dependent on vitality, such as circulation, respiration, and transpiration, and the power of re-production ”

“ Excess of stimulus affects vegetables in the same manner as it does animals, destroys them. Willdenow, in his Principles of Botany, when alluding to Boletus, says, "these plants require a very small quantity of oxygen to promote their growth, and, therefore, as soon as they are brought into the open air they decay. ”

“ Besides, we well know that they had never described the character of plants, such as the figure of their corollas, calyx, or pericarp, but only ascertained and handed down to their posterity the suitable medicinal properties of vegetables; and, however much more useful this sort of knowledge might be, yet it certainly was only a branch of medicine, and can by no means be comprehended within the term Botany, which, strictly speaking, is that Science which treats of the structure, organization, and characters of plants ”

“ How dependant, in fact, upon chemical processes, are the nourishment and growth of organized beings, their various alterations of form, their constant production of new substances, and finally their death and decomposition decomposition, in which Nature seems to take unto herself those elements and constituent principles, which, for a while, she had lent to a superior agent as the means and instruments of the spirit of life."
Plants are furnished with apparatus or organs for the purpose of carrying on the functions of transpiration, secretion, and absorption ”

“ Common tansy, well known for its bitterness and pungency, has been eaten with impunity when excluded from the action of light. Linnæus compared the leaves of plants to the lungs of animals, as the organs by which exhalation and transpiration are carried on in vegetables; and in the animal kingdom the air is taken in by the lungs and suffers a chemical change, and does not a similar effect take place on atmospheric air? ”

“ No person can deny the brilliancy of the talents of Jussieu, so conspicuous in all his luminous writings, and throughout his system; yet to be impartial, it must he conceded that there are many plants which cannot be referred to any of his natural orders, the number of which exceeds an hundred, and they are approached by so many points, that it requires no ordinary memory to be able to classify plants according to its rules ”

“ I humbly conceive, therefore, that if the human understanding can, in any case, flatter itself with obtaining in the natural world a glimpse of the immediate agency of the Deity, it is in the contemplation of this vital principle, which seems independent of natural organization, and an impulse of His own divine energy. ”

“ The various juices of plants are formed from the sap, and are not the different secretions of animals formed from the blood? Vegetables cannot exist without air any more than animals can. Place a plant under the exhausted receiver of an air pump ”

“ Now as plants are endowed with life, they are, as a natural consequence, subject to death, though the term of their existence varies greatly, e. g. some only live for one year, and are termed annuals; others two years, and hence named biennials; and some many years, and are called perennials. All vegetables having woody stems, (trees and shrubs) , as I need scarcely tell you, come under the latter denomination. ”

“ Carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, constitute the ultimate elements of vegetables, although in some plants there is a fourth element, viz. nitrogen, which exists in plants belonging to the natural orders, Cruciatæ and Fungi. ”

“ Saccharina or Sugar-Maple, furnishes to the North Americans an article well known under the name of Sugar, but which is generally obtained from the Sugar Cane or Succhnrum Officinarum of Linnæus. Manna is procured from a species of Ash termed Fraxinus Ornus: and many other vegetable products might be enumerated, were it not that they would form too distended a list for present consideration.
Plants, according to the places of which they are natives, require different degrees of heat. Elasticity is common to vegetables ”

“ The cedar of Lebanon is known to exist for several centuries, and it is reported that a tree named Adansonia digitata, or monkies' bread or sour-gourd tree, which is well known in the tropical and western coast of Africa, has attained the age of one thousand years, and, when they perish, even their decay furnishes manure for another series, so that nothing is lost by the change, which Dr. ”

“ Linnæus suffered the brilliancy of his imagination to get the better of his judgment, when he stated that heat was the heart, and the earth the stomach of plants. In his Philosophia Botanica he says, "stones grow, vegetables grow and live, animals grow, live, and feel." The want of locomotion in plants is a very distinguishing characteristic.
The quality of the juices secreted by vegetables varies very much, e. ”