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The Scientific Cradle of Botany—Theophrastus and Other Pioneers

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The Scientific Cradle of Botany—Theophrastus and Other Pioneers Israel Journal of Plant Sciences Vol. 58 2010 pp. 309–318 DOI: 10.1560/IJPS.58.3-4.309 IN MEMORIAM Moshe Negbi (1927–2008) The scientific cradle of botany—Theophrastus and other pioneers Moshe Negbi✡ Robert Smith Institute of Plant Sciences and Genetics in Agriculture, Robert Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot 76100, Israel PROLOGUE For many years Professor Moshe Negbi served as assistant editor and editor of Israel Journal of Botany (the precursor to Israel Journal of Plant Sciences). His last academic years were dedicated to studying the history of botanical sciences. After a decade of teaching the subject, he began to write a book about it. His daughter, Dvora Negbi, was the driving force behind this paper, presented here as a memorial to the man and his work. This paper, edited posthumously by Meira Ziv* and Elisha Telor, and translated by Nili Ben Yehezkel, is a shortened version of some chapters in Prof. Negbi’s unfinished book. Its editing involved de- tective work to locate sources, since he did not complete the bibliography, only some of the references that appeared in the text. ✡Deceased. *Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: [email protected] © 2010 Science From Israel / LPPltd., Jerusalem 310 THE BEGINNINGS It is unclear how much of the Hippocratic Corpus can be attributed to Hippocrates (~450–370 BCE), the “From the beginning, the study of plants has been ap- physician from the Aegean island of Kos. Many plant proached from two widely separated standpoints—the medications are mentioned in the Hippocratic Corpus. philosophical and the utilitarian. Regarded from the first More than 230 plants are mentioned as contributing point of view, botany stands upon its own merits as an to medical preparations, whereas about 100 plants are integral branch of natural philosophy, whereas, from the listed as having healing nutritional components. The lat- second, it is merely a by-product of medicine or agricul- ter were sorted by their edible parts: grains, seeds, fruit, ture” (Arber, 1912). It is not possible to determine the leaves, and roots, as well as by other geophillous organs. time boundaries before and after the world of science In the Hippocratic manuscripts, botanical phenomena became part of human experience. Long before writing are compared to phenomena in animal physiology, as in was invented people carved oat grains and etched forms the following quotes on germination and shoot culture, of flowers on bones, thus expressing their nutritional both from On the Nature of the Child, translated by need of plants, their aesthetic pleasure from them and I.M. Lonie (1932; in other translations to English the their rudimentary scientific interest. book is called On the Nature of the Embryo). The book The first botanical manuscript was discovered at the describes the development of the human embryo, after royal library in Ninveh—the capital of Assyria—buried which the development of the animal embryo is com- under the ruins of king Ashurbanipal’s palace (~668–627 pared with plant germination and development: BCE). This rare manuscript, a Sumerian–Akkadian dic- tionary of plant names, written on clay plates, includes Now when a seed is planted in the earth, it is plant names in Sumerian translated to Akkadian. It filled with moisture from it (the earth contains contains about 400 Sumerian plant names that relate many different varieties of moisture, which is why to about 200 species, translated to about 800 Akkadian it can nurture plants). Once the seed is filled with names (mostly synonyms) of medicinal herbs and edible, moisture, it becomes inflated and swells. Now textile, ornamental, woody plants and weeds. The plant there is a virtue or power in the seed: when the names are arranged in groups according to their usage. lightest part of this virtue is condensed and com- Major food plants, cereals, and legumes belong to one pressed by breath and the moisture in the seed, it group; the gourd (Cucurbitaceae) family and other vege- turns into green shoots and breaks the seed open. tables, trees, and fruits to another. Three groups are based This is what happens at first: the shoots sprout on peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) characteristics: barley upwards, but once they have sprouted, then the (Hordeum vulgare L.), wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), moisture in the seed is no longer sufficient for Biblical buckwheat (Triticum dicoccum Schübl.), single their nutrition. So the seed and its shoots break granular wheat (T. monoccocum L.), millet (Poaceae), open in a downward direction […] Once the plant and rice (Oryza sativa L.), which according to Morton has taken firm root below and begins to derive (1981) was grown in Babylon in the 7th century BCE, its nutriment from the earth, then the whole seed although Zohary and Hopf (2000) disagree with him. is absorbed by the plant and disappears, except- Other groups include washing and laundering plants; and ing the husk, which is the most solid part of the dyeing, diarrheic, anesthetic, textile, and resin secreting seed. Eventually this too rots in the earth and plants. Cane (Saccharum officinarum L.), sesame (Sesa- disappears. After a time, some of the shoots send mum Indicum L., Composite, of Indian origin), and bind- out branches. Now the plant, since it comes from weed (Convolvulaciae) are included in the cereal group. a seed, that is, from something moist, while it Thorny plants are grouped together, and so are climbing remains tender and moist and strives to grow plants. The taxonomy of two more groups is unclear. upwards and downwards, cannot put forth fruit. Science, and especially the secrets of matter and the The reason is that its natural capacity is not strong universe, intrigued the first Greek philosophers (the pre- and rich enough to be compacted. But when time Socratics). Only a few of their writings remained. The has made the plant firm and rooted it, it develops first philosophical schools were established during the broad veins running upwards and downwards, so 6th and 7th centuries BCE in Miletus in Asia Minor, and the substance it draws from the earth is no longer in Magna Graecia, the Greek colonies in south Italy and watery, but thicker and more fatty and greater in in Sicily. In addition to studies in medicine, agriculture, quantity. This substance is heated by the sun, and and ornamental gardening, they also established the seethes into the tips of the plant, where it becomes beginnings of various theoretical sciences, botany being fruit of the same kind as what it came from. The one of their foundations. reason for the abundance of fruit, despite its Israel Journal of Plant Sciences 58 2010.
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