SC - Re: Gerard's Herbal

[Tollhase1 at aol.com]

Sorry lots of snips from various people. Lost track of whom said what.

In a message dated 4/5/00 5:09:07 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
gwalli at infoengine.com writes:


 

 
 I think the bells and whistles edition weighs more than 10 pounds.
 I know for a fact that a misbalanced copy can adequately flatten an
 overweight cat when dropped from the height of a standard queen
 sized mattress and boxspring. :)

Well, with our cat, its worth the 100.  One site has it for 75. Wait until 
taxes are done.
 
 Incidentally, my copy only cost 60 dollars US including shipping
 from Barnes and Noble online. Regrettably, not available at
 their website at this time. 

Will check there60 is better than 75
:
 

 Keep in mind that the taxonomic difficulties may not have
 been the problem of Gerard. The edition most commonly
 used and quoted from and printed or abridged today is not
 the edition written by Gerard. It is typically the 1636
 edition of Thomas Johnson's expansion and edited version
 of Gerard. A very large difference indeed. And the weighty
 tome mentioned above does have some elaborate methods
 of indicating exactly which pieces are original Gerard and
 which pieces are those of Johnson's change or addition.

Gee and I have just been drooling at the pictures and captions.
 
 However, that having been said, I think all hope is not lost.
 Take a copy of Gerard, a copy of Maude Grieve's Herbal
 (out of period, but much closer to mundania) and a good
 herbal written within the last 7 years and you're on your
 way to a first draft taxonomic map. I would peronally add
 Culpepper to that list between Gerard and Grieve just for
 an added point of reference. (Note I'm only listing easily
 accessible documents...)
 
Will check interlibrary loan.  Friends have culpepper.
 Akim went on to say:
 
 >The illustrations are often theonly way to guess what they are talking 
about as they often are describing non-existant amd imaginary species based 
on legend and
 >rumour.

Its probably not worse than other medieval scientific journals.  Espeically 
the reports for seafarers and their monsters
 
 I don't personally think Johnson's edition of Gerard is quite that
 bad. Older herbals, yes.
 

 >  >>>>Has anyone ever gone through and listed his multi lingual references 
to
 >things?  Looks like a good project if it has not been done.  Or looked up
 >what modern equivalents are.<<<<
 
 If you mean has anyone taken just that bit of the document out
 and set it down with modern taxonimic classifications, then I
 can give you a resounding "no" 

That and at times I noticed a plant being refered to by the german name, and 
then the Dutch called it----and the French---.  I think that such a cross 
reference would be helpful to translate/redact medieval texts the same way 
that knowing how long a prayer would be (stir as long as it takes to say a 
certain prayer)
 
 As a Machead who still owns one of the first 100 macs
 ever made, let me be the first to very selfishly offer you
 any and all help you will need transfering this information
 into a format readible for Mac IBM/clone or Unix workstation.

Know knowing mac, could you send it from a working machine to an ibm machine ?
Ok I eat big macs not use them.
 
 These have been great responses. Many thanks

Frederich