- John Gerard
:"See also
John Gerard, S.J. John Gerard (
Nantwich , 1545 – February, 1611/12 inLondon [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9036536] ) was an Englishherbalist famous for hisherbal garden . After being educated in Willaston nearNantwich he started to study medicine and travelled widely as a ship's surgeon. From 1577 on, he supervised the gardens ofWilliam Cecil, Lord Burghley in London. In 1595 Gerard became a member of the Court of Assistants in the Barber-Surgeon's company, in 1597 he was appointed Junior Warden of the Barber-Surgeons, in 1608 Master of the same.In 1596, he published a list of plants cultivated in his
garden atHolborn , still extant in theBritish Museum , and in 1597 his famous "Great Herbal". In 1633 an enlarged and amended version was printed. Gerard used the "Materia Medica" ofDioscorides , the works of the German botanists Fuchs and Gesner and the ItalianMatthiolus . The 1597 and 1633 editions are commonly referred to as "Gerard's Herbal".The "General Historie of Plants" is famous for the detailed descriptions of plants, the folklore contained in the articles and its splendid prose. Its origins are somewhat controversial. The Queen's printer
John Norton had commissioned a Dr. Priest to prepare an English-language translation ofRembert Dodoens ' immensely popular herbal. Priest having died before completing the work, Norton asked Gerard to take over. Gerard finished the translation, rearranged the work, and added as-yet-unpublished material of an herbalist named l'Obel. However, in the herbal Gerard states that Priest's translation had disappeared and that he had written a new book. Modern-day authorities disagree as to the extent of original work in Gerard's herbal.Gerard's Herbal was later revised by
John Goodyer and Thomas Johnson.Linnaeus honoured Gerard in the name of the plant genus "Gerardia ".References
*Marcus Woodward (ed.) "Gerard's herbal. The history of plants" (London, Senate 1994).
*Duane Isely, "One hundred and one botanists" (Iowa State University Press, 1994), pp. 46-48
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