PART II.
THE PERUVIAN TERRITORY.
BOTANY
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE PRESENT STATE OF THE BOTANICAL SCIENCE IN PERU.
IN Peru, botany, considered as a science, was in a manner neglected until towards the close of the eighteenth century. The primitive inhabitants, who were fond of agriculture, and of the empiric practice of medicine, applied themselves to the discovery of the virtues of many plants. The doctrine which was handed down from father to son, together with a certain inclination which prompted them to this study, and the high employment it procured them, rendered them excellent herbalists[1]. The revolutions, however, by which the conquest was
was
- ↑ All the historians agree on this head. Many years even after the conquest, the Indians had a higher reputation, as to botanical knowledge, than those who professed medicine. In proof of this, may be cited the proceedings of the assembly holden in the Royal University of St. Mark of Lima, in 1637, to discuss the propriety of founding two professorships of medicine. On this occasion, Dodlor Alonso De Huerta, gratuitous professor of the Quechua tongue, observed as follows: "They are unnecessary, because in this kingdom there are many medicinal herbs, for a variety of diseases and hurts, with which the Indians are better acquainted than the physicians. They cure themselves with them without having need of physicians; and experience demonstrates to us, that many persons, when given over by the fa-
culty,
