EARLY MULTILINGUAL AND MULTISCRIPT

INDEXES IN HERBALS

Hans H. Wellisch

Associate Professor, College of Library and Information

Services, University of Maryland

The earliest examples of indexes in more than

one language and in several scripts are those

found in herbals of the late 15th and early 16th

century. The features of these indexes are

analyzed, and the gradual development of name

and subject indexes, their alphabetical

arrangement by various methods, and finally the

systematic display in several languages and

scripts in the works of Conrad Gessner and

Leonhart Fuchs are demonstrated by examples.

The early history of alphabetical subject in

dexes as found in medieval manuscripts, in in

cunabula, and in some historical, theological,

and legal texts printed during the first part of the

16th century has been the subject of earlier

studies (Knight 1968, Witty 1965, 1973). The

investigators concluded that the art of indexing as

exemplified by the works studied was not very

highly developed before 1550: the alphabetical

arrangement of entries rarely if ever extended

beyond the second letter of the first word in an

entry, and catchwords taken from the text or

from marginal notes formed in most instances the

points of access.

During that same period there appeared,

however, a type of book, namely the herbals,

which differed in several respects from most

other early books: they were the earliest scientific

books written partially or entirely in the ver

nacular;* they reached a high level of excellence

in their illustrations; and they contained extensive

name and subject indexes, often in more than one

language and sometimes even in more than one

script.

The herbals were medico-botanical works,

describing medicinal plants, their properties and

healing powers, giving recipes for the preparation

of remedies and drugs, and sometimes containing

also descriptions of animals and minerals from

which medications could be prepared. The

earliest works of this kind were almost entirely

based on the works of ancient writers on

medicine, foremost among which were Aristotle,

Dioscorides, Theophrastos, Galenos, and Pliny

the Elder. These writers' original descriptions of

plants and of diseases that could be treated by

their extracts or application contain some of the

earliest known examples of alphabetical

arrangement (Daly 1967), and they were more or

less faithfully transmitted in manuscripts

throughout the Middle Ages and early

Renaissance, by which time they had become

classics, studied as much by the humanists for

textual variants as by physicians and apothecaries

for their intrinsic topics. Indeed, much of the

training of physicians during the late Middle

Ages and until the early 16th century consisted of

comparative studies of the ancient texts and the

(often fanciful) identification of northern and

central European plants with those described by

the ancient authors. It was then not realized that

the descriptions in the ancient texts were often

•Only two small scientific incunabula were published in

vernacular languages prior to the first herbals in

German, Dutch and French, namely the Arte dell'

abaco (Treviso, 1478) and Wilhelm von Hirnkofen's

Der tractat Arnoldi de Nova villa von bewarug un

berating der wein (Esslingen, 1478), a German trans

lation of Tractatus de vinis by Arnaldo de Villanova.

Most scientific books became available in vernacular

editions only much later. The Elementa of Euclid, for

example, were first translated into Italian in 1543, into

German in 1SS5, into French in 1564, and into English

in 1570.

ThelndexerVol. 11 No. 2 October 1978 81

quite vague since the plants and trees and their

names had apparently been well known to

contemporary readers in Italy and Greece.

Almost 2,000 years later, those names meant little

or nothing and could often be applied to almost

any plant. As a consequence, the compilers of

herbals frequently assigned the same Latin or

Greek name to quite different plants, sometimes

arguing fiercely with each other about

'erroneous' identifications, and seeking to

reinforce their arguments by referring also to the

local vernacular names of plants and trees. One

of their prime concerns was therefore the

alphabetical arrangement of plant descriptions by

their Latin names, the 'correct* translations of

these names from the original Greek, and, with

the steady rise of the vernaculars to a state of at

least semi-respectability during the Middle Ages,

also translations into the major languages then

spoken in Europe.

The inclusion of vernacular names in Latin

herbals and the simultaneous publication of

herbals written entirely in the vernacular had also

a much more practical reason. While it took some

considerable degree of learning and

sophistication to study the works of Greek and

Latin writers (which constituted the bulk of early

book production), anyone who spoke the ver

nacular and could read and write it, however

imperfectly, could now easily learn how to

preserve one's health and to cure common

ailments—not an easy task at any time and

particularly difficult in that age of perennial

pestilence and plague, aggravated by a dismal

state of public and private hygiene and a scarcity

of doctors, who charged high fees for their ser

vices but knew precious little about the art of

healing. There was therefore a large and ever-

expanding market for these books which

publishers'were eager to exploit. And while Latin

texts could initially make do with the printed

word alone, as had largely been the custom

throughout the Middle Ages, the vernacular

editions of herbals had to be issued with

illustrations that made it possible for the layman

to identify plants, and also with good

alphabetical indexes to vernacular names and to

the multitude of diseases that could be treated

with extracts, tinctures and ointments made from

herbs.

At first, illustrations and indexes were often

non-existent or at best crude and rudimentary,

but within the course of a few decades the herbals

were illustrated by superbly drawn and

exquisitely cut images of plants, and they were

also provided with name and subject indexes of a

surprisingly high standard. These indexes were

apparently heavily used, because many of the

herbals that have come down to us are well

preserved but lack some or all of their index

pages. Since these pages were neither placed at

the beginning nor at the end of a volume (from

which positions pages are often missing in old

books) but were generally put between the

preface and the first chapter, we must presume

that they disintegrated by being thumbed through

hundreds of times.

We shall follow this development by looking at

examples of herbals from the late Middle Ages,

their first printed successors published during the

incunabula period, to some of the magnificent

plant compendia of the mid-16th century and to a

turning point in index-making for herbals in the

works of Fuchs and in the botanical and

zoological works of Gessner.*

Manuscript herbals

One of the earliest manuscript herbals con

taining both figures of plants and an index to

their names is an anonymous Herbarium^ of the late 13th or early 14th century preserved in the

library of the University of Pavia. Unfortunately,

its modern transcribed edition states only that

there is a 'short and incomplete index' on folio

129a (Gasparrini 1952, p. 9) whose arrangement

and quality could therefore not be assessed;

nevertheless, a secular work having some sort of

index at all, however incomplete, is remarkable in

itself at such an early time, seeing that both Daly

and Witty state that even in papal records and

legal material no alphabetical indexes can be

found before the 14th century.

In another manuscript, De virtutibus her-

barurri1 by Rufinus, dated ca. 1290, there is an alphabetical index to the names of plants,

arranged by their first letter only (which had been

the alphabetizing method used thoughout most of

the Middle Ages and was to remain so for more

than 200 years).

•The following descriptions of indexes refer in most

instances to the first edition of each herbal, because

later printings or editions (of which there were

sometimes a large number) generally followed the

pattern set in the first edition. Only in a few cases, when

significant improvements took place, are later editions

of a herbal compared with the first one. I am grateful to

the Library of Congress, the National Library of

Medicine, the National Agricultural Library, and the

Folger Shakespeare Library, as well as to correspon

dents in some other libraries, for making these works

available to me.

82 The Indexer Vol. 11 No. 2 October 1978

Incunabula

The earliest printed herbal, published in Naples

in 1477, is a description of 88 plants in the form

of an unrhymed Latin poem by Aemilius Macer3

(better known as Macer Floridus), probably

written in the late 11th century; it had as yet

neither illustrations nor an index. Only two or perhaps three years later, in 1480 or 1481, there

appeared the first printed version of another very

popular and much older botanical work

(probably dating from the fourth century and

preserved in many manuscripts from the sixth

through the 15th century), namely the Her

barium* of Apuleius (known variously as

Pseudo-Apuleius, Apuleius Platonicus or

Apuleius Barbaras), edited and printed by

Johannes Philippus de Lignamine. This work,

which is mainly a list of plant names and recipes

from Dioscorides, was copied from a ninth-

century manuscript in the monastery at Monte

Cassino. It was arranged in rough alphabetical

order of the Latin names of plants and was thus

self-indexing. Alongside each Latin name the

Greek one was given in transliterated form, but

the editor added also Italian, French, 'Aegyptian'

(i.e. mostly Arabic) and 'Dacian' (i.e. Slavic)

names, a clear indication that towards the end of

the ISth century the vernaculars had assumed a

certain importance. In many instances, there were

also Hebrew plant names as found in the

prophetic books of the Bible, transliterated

according to the Vulgate. As yet, however, there

was no index to the Greek, Hebrew or vernacular

names. Each plant was illustrated by a hand-

coloured woodcut (largely copied from pictures

in the manuscript) which, though rather crudely

drawn, conveyed some semblance of a plant's

appearance; often these pictures showed also

images of serpents, scorpions or beetles, if the

plant was thought to be useful against their sting

or bite (Figure 1). The herbal of Apuleius is thus

one of the earliest illustrated scientific in

cunabula.

The first three herbals that were not merely

printed copies of ancient manuscripts but new

compilations (though also mostly based on the

Herbarium and other medical and botanical

works of the ancients) were published in Mainz,

the cradle of the first printed books in the

Western world.

Two of them came indeed from the press of

Gutenberg's associate and successor, Peter

Schttffer. In 1484 he published a Herbarius6 that

listed about 150 plants in rough alphabetical

MLRBAARGIMONIA.

i, .

A graeaj. dici'tur aptcla ucl acclzr ^u Sarco coHanw ^[ili Argiiaontaiw.

AD OCVLOHVM VICiA VEL

DOLORJEM. Herba Argtmonia uiridisperfetrkarGari/

da fuait incalidd aqua inuncUutfedllim*

Figure 1. Apuleius Barbarus, Herbarium, 1477.

Illustration of 'Argimonia' (Argemone mexicana L.,

Prickly poppy).

order by their Latin names, each of which was

accompanied by its German equivalent. The book

contained also descriptions of almost 100 animals

and minerals considered to be sources of

medicaments. According to Schdffer's in

troduction, the book was to be an 'aggregator

practicus de simplicibus* in quo quivis hominum

sibi ipsi subvenire poterit paucis deductis ex-

pensis', that is to say a handbook of medicinal

herbs and plants expressly aimed at the layman

who might with the help of the book be able to

become his own physician 'at little cost'. Each

♦In the terminology of the ancients, the individual

medicinal plants were called 'simplicia'; from a mixture

of these 'simple' herbs extracts, tinctures and oint

ments, the 'composita' could be prepared.

The Indexer Vol. 11 No. 2 October 1978 83

trtij

AlUaycnjrc eft vnrt fpcrieo Tolatri« c frifftd.ia fico new fctfm gwdu. a babct Folia finnli.1 fot ft>clbl3tri*ctbabct Fructummafia rotimdfifi tnilcm vcficc- weft Fnirtua ffmnurubimndtim finnlc viicct virtus cum pros nun ell vimitt vu«lupine* ^Ikahcngctrtcf finiiLia'Tucciio ci< ua inijenio cumlticrocdidome ctnimvirriolo

romano pulucnfttonitromitrcmio ftRulio plti rihtlrt <!MfllitlRrtittfrvn»!l9Hrth*HmAiiKiiii if«#

Figure 2. Peter Schttffer, Herbarius, 1484. Illustration

of 'Alkakenge' (Physalis alkekengi L., Winter cherry).

plant description was accompanied by a coloured

woodcut in a rather stiff and decidedly Gothic

style (Figure 2); the parts on animals and

minerals were not illustrated. Despite the em

phasis on practicality, no index was deemed to be

necessary because the plants were listed by their

(presumably well-known) Latin names, thus

making the work self-indexing. The Herbarius

was an immediate success and less than a year

after its first publication it was also brought out in pirated editions in Louvain with the addition

of Dutch plant names and in Paris with French

ones. Schflffer must have realized that many

laymen, though able to read, could not make

good use of a Latin text, and only one year later,

in 1485, he published an enlarged German ver

sion of the book, Gart der Gesundtheit6 whose

compilation was ascribed to Johann von Cube,*

town physician of Frankfurt; the first edition

♦Probably Johnnes Wonnecke or Dronnecke.

84

lacked a title page, but on the last page the title

was explicitly named and most later editions also

had it on the title page.

The Gart is one of the most remarkable herbals

not only because it was one of the first in

cunabula on a scientific subject written in the

vernacular, but especially from the point of view

of its indexes which were far in advance of those

that were compiled during the following four or

five decades. First of all, few if any books at that

time had any indexes at all. Second, the work had

not only one but two such keys to its contents,

namely an alphabetical name index and a

classified subject index. Third, these indexes were

printed in modern fashion at the end of the text

and not, as became the custom in later herbals

(and other indexed books until the 17th century)

as a kind of augmented Table of Contents, put

between the preface and the first chapter:}* The

subject index followed the textual part of the

book and was announced thus:

'... vnd ist ein register behende zu finden von

alienkrancgheytender mensche.. .'$

It occupied 24 pages (leaves 207v to 220v) and

was arranged in the sequence 'from head to heel'

(a capite ad calcem), a time-honoured custom

dating back more than 4,000 years to ancient

Egypt§ followed throughout antiquity and the

Middle Ages, and also observed in most of the

early herbals that had subject indexes to diseases

and organs of the body. After the diseases of the

feet came other odds and ends of medical and

pharmaceutical lore that did not fit into the main

sequence, listed in no apparent order. The last

entries dealt with the following matters:

How to make your guests gay and happy. Ch.

47, para. 8.

When you want to know whether a sick person

will die or recover. Ch. 47, para. 5.

When the skin of young children is flaking off

under the arms. Ch, 417, para. 2.

How to remove spots caused by the sun. Ch.

420 at the end.

■^Shakespeare's well-known references to indexes

(Troilus and Ctessida, I, Hi; Hamlet, III, iv; Othello, II,

i) clearly indicate that in his time an index preceded the

text of a work.

$'. . . and is an index quickly to find about all

diseases of human beings....'

§The Smith papyrus, a collection of recipes and medical

cases, written about 1600 B.C. (but based on works that

were older by about a millenium) cites the cases in the

same order.

ThelndexerVol. 11 No. 2 October 1978

Caccccyt||Wf

tniUumiflntob

oat gcntft

©afeniungm firitx bit Gut aJSc$a vnbtt fcrtantim

bebct*

iDieraoimUn^u • 2lmPrtjta ̂ ttQwotQ*Cap'^^tp

nrnne mi

Figure 3. Gart der Gesundtheit, I48S. End of subject index and beginning of name index.

What kills rats. Ch. 423 at the end.

To remove the worms that are stuck into the

sweatholes of young children. Ch. 425,

para. 7.

This subject index was followed by a name index

of plants, arranged alphabetically (by first letter

only) according to the Latin name of a plant,

accompanied by the German one, and the chapter

number (Figure 3). Each 'chapter' consisted of

the description of one plant, ranging from one to

several pages, and this method of arrangement

was observed also in practically all subsequent

herbals (although later on, both chapter and page

numbers were used in index references).

Thus the very first name index found in a

printed herbal already displayed the feature of

bilingual terminology* which, as we shall see,

was later developed into elaborate multilingual

and even multiscript indexes.

*The custom of compiling lists of plant names in two

languages has also very ancient roots. Cuneiform tablets

dating from the seventh century B.C. list about 2S0

plant names in two columns, first giving the Sumerian

name and then its Akkadian equivalent. Sumerian was

by that time no longer a spoken language but it was

considered to be the language cf culture and wisdom by

the Akkadian-speaking Babylonians, roughly

equivalent to the status of Latin in the Middle Ages and

Renaissance. Some of our present plant names may even

be traceable to these Sumerian names, e.g. cumin

(kamunu) or myrrh (murru). See Thompson (1924).

Thelndexer Vol. 11 No. 2 October 1978 85

The Ortus sanitatis7 (also known as Hortus

sanitatis*), the third herbal published in Mainz,

was printed by Jakob Meydenbach in 1491. It

was not, as the title may suggest, a Latin tran

slation of the Gart but a work of much larger size

and wider scope, including descriptions and

illustrations of 530 plants, 122 animals, 106

fishes and other aquatic creatures, and 144

minerals and gemstones. Altogether, it contained

more than 1,000 pictures, including some full-

page illustrations showing how physicians and

apothecaries went about their business.

The work had no less than six 'tabulae', four of

which were tables of contents to each of the four

parts of the book, namely plants, animals, fishes

and minerals, arranged after the text (leaves 438r

to 447r). A 'Tabula generalis de herbis' (leaves

447v to 453r) which followed these tables of

contents was essentially a recapitulation of the

names of plants in the order in which they were

listed in the first part of the book. It began with a

Prohemium that explained the purpose of the

alphabetical arrangement and the index which

followed it:

'Cum supremi Dei adiutorio librum hunc (qui

ortus sanitatis recte appellant) in finem usque

feliciter perduximus ne te lectorem in eodem

tediosi vagari contingat. Verum ut valeas

(optime lector) cito in hoc opere invenire quod

requiris quid remedium egritudini adhibere

debeas . . . Et primo in ortum herbarum

tabula heccine indicem ponet.'t

The names of plants were arranged in quite good

alphabetical order, mostly up to the second and

sometimes the third letter. After the list of names

came an analytical subject index to the organs of

the body and their diseases, with copious

references to plants that could be used in their

treatment and care. Most entries had from three

to eight references to chapters and paragraphs

(marked by capital letters in the margin of the

•The first edition has Ortus, but some subsequent

editions leave space for a large ornamental H before

ortus. Either form makes sense, ortus meaning 'source,

origin', and hortus 'garden'.

fWith God Almighty's help we have now successfully

brought this book (truly named the Source of Health) to

its conclusion, lest it happen, o reader, that you should

have to wander around in it tediously. But so that you,

dearest reader, may prevail to find quickly in this work

what you require and what remedy of an illness you

ought to apply. . . . And first, in this source, a table of

plants shows their place in it.

text). Several entries, however, had more than 40

references, e.g. 'Menstrua provocanda' with 58,

and 'Dentium dolorem curandam' with 54. A

typical entry looked like this:

Aurium dolor

Ca iij H

CavD

Ca vij D & K

CaxvT

At that time it was still considered necessary to

indicate that the roman numeral referred to a

chapter, but this custom was soon abandoned in

later indexes, when readers apparently had

become accustomed to the way a reference

locator was printed; references to pages instead

of chapters and paragraphs appeared only much

later, as we shall see.

A remarkable and quite modern feature of this

subject index was its arrangement, not in the

traditional manner 'from head to heel' but in

strictly alphabetical order, beginning with

Alopitia (the 'fox-sickness' that caused hair to

fall out) and ending with Yliaca passio (pain in

the hipbone).

Thus, the Ortus sanitatis no less than its

predecessor, the Gart, displayed elaborate and

extensive indexes of a quality and mode of

arrangement not attained by most of its im

mediate successors, and not surpassed until about

half a century later.

The printers of subsequent editions were eager

to draw the attention of prospective readers to the

fact that indexes were provided. The second

edition of the Ortus, printed in Strassburg by

Johann Pruss, proudly announced on the title

page that the book contained a 'Tabula

medicinalis cum directorio generali per omnes

tractatus', referring to the alphabetical list of

plant names and the subject index.

The Herbarius, the Gart and the Ortus sanitatis

were reprinted (mostly in pirated editions) many

times during the next three decades, and they

were very soon also translated into Dutch,

French, Italian and English. We shall consider

some of these translations later on.

By the end of the 15th century, the first printed

editions of Greek and Latin texts of Dioscorides

and Theophrastos had appeared, but these works

lacked as yet name or subject indexes. According

to George Sarton, at least 43 editions of the

various herbals were printed during the in

cunabula period, ranking fifth on his list of

scientific incunabula best sellers (Sarton, 1938).

86 ThelndexerVol. 11 No. 2 October 1978

Latin herbals of the early 16th century

About a quarter of a century after the

publication of the amazingly well-indexed herbals

printed in Mainz, separate name and subject

indexes began to be included in texts and com

mentaries to the writings of the ancient medical

and botanical authors. Among the earliest

examples is a 'cartula herbarum secundum or-

dinem alphabeti' in an edition of Theophrastos'

De virtutibus herbarum included in an edition of

the Herbarius latinus issued in 1509. Although

the work itself is alphabetically arranged by Latin

names, the index refers the reader to chapter

numbers.

One of the most extensive subject indexes to

herbs and diseases was provided by the Italian

physician Ermolao Barbaro who published in

1516 the first annotated Latin translation of

Dioscorides' Materia medical It occupied no less than 58 pages printed in three columns of about

50 entries each, thus providing a key to over

9,000 items; all references were to pages.

In passing, we may also notice that a 1527

edition of the Latin poem on herbs by Macer

Floridus9 was now equipped with an index of names, listing not only Latin but also Greek plant

names in transcription.

Vernacular herbals

The earliest herbal in French, the Arbolaire

(probably printed in 1487 or 1488), was a trans

lation of a popular medieval work on plants by

Platearius, Liber de simplici medicina (also

known as 'Circa instans' after the first words of

the text). It had a classified subject index,

beginning with 'les remedes pour les maladies de

la teste' that occupied 18 leaves in double

columns, and contained also a 'Lexposition des

mos obscurs et mal cognus par lordre des lettres

de a.b.c. ec* (leaves 21-23).* Since neither the

manuscripts of the text on which it was based nor

its subsequent printed editionf had such in

dexes, it is reasonable to assume that their in

clusion and arrangement were modelled on the

indexes of the Gart. About 10 years after its first

appearance, probably between 1498 and 1500, the

work was published in another edition, this time

under the title Le grant herbier en francoys,

which was subsequently translated into English.

•This book is very rare and I have not seen a copy of it.

The description of its indexes is based on the entry in

Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke, no. 2312.

t Venetiis: Bonetus Locatellus, 1497.

Shortly afterwards, in 1501 or 1502, another

French herbal was published, the Jardin de

sante," a translation and adaptation of the Ortus sanitatis. It had an index of Latin plant

names with their French equivalents printed on

the same line, but had no separate French index

to those names; following the example of its

source, organs and diseases were listed

alphabetically but the entries were alphabetized

only by first or second letter, and subheadings

were listed in no apparent order.

An original work on plants (though not a

herbal in the strict sense) was Hieronymus

Brunschwig's Liber de arte distillandi, 12 first

published in 1500 with a Latin title yet written

entirely in German; later editions had the German

title Distillierbach. The book dealt both with

plants and the techniques of distillation and was

illustrated with some 200 rather coarse woodcuts.

This first edition had only a list of chapters with

an abstract for each, constituting a kind of table

of contents combined with a classified subject

index, but there was no subject index by name of

disease, parts of the body or distillation ap

paratus. The subsequent editions of 1515 and

1521 contained also an index of 'composita',

arranged by Latin name in rough alphabetical

order, followed by an index of 'simplicia'

showing on one line first the Latin name, then its

German equivalent. Altogether, these indexes

occupied 19 leaves with two columns to each

page. The book was very popular and went

through many editions and adaptations (the last

of which was published as late as 1610), and it

was also translated into several other languages.

In the 1520s it became customary to announce

the presence of indexes in a prominent place on

the title page of herbals, no doubt because

publishers found that a book with indexes sold

better than one without such keys to its contents.

An early instance of such an index announcement

is couched in language of which all indexers

ought to be proud; the title page of an edition of

the Gart printed in 1527 in Strassburg by B. Beck

says:

'. . . Item ein nellw Register in welchem man

den ganzen inhalt diss btlchs (als in einem

Spiegel) sicht.. .'*

In 1522 the first herbal in Italian was published,

the Herbolario volgare)* a translation of an earlier Italian edition of the Latin Herbarius

•'Also a new index in which one can see the whole

contents of this book (as in a mirror).'

Thelndexer Vol. 11 No. 2 October 1978 87

printed in 1491 under the title Herbolarium de

virtutibus herbarum and there fancifully ascribed

to Arnaldus de Villanova and Avicenna, two

famous medieval physicians whose works were

then often cited as sources in various herbals. The

Herbolario was arranged alphabetically by what can best be described as Italianized Latin plant

names; it contained an index to those names and a brief subject index of diseases in rough

alphabetical order.

Between 1521 and 1529 several English herbals

were published, most of which were based on

some of the Latin or German ones. The first two,

The Noble lyfe™ and An herball,™ published in

1521 and in 1525 respectively, were still in the

medieval tradition: they were not illustrated, and

while the descriptive text was in English, the

plants were listed mostly by their Latin names,

with only a few English ones mentioned oc

casionally in An herball. That work concluded

with a note 'Here foloweth the table of this boke

in ordre by ye Alphabete' but this was no more

than a brief and incomplete list of Latin and a

few English names, arranged by first letter only,

and without chapter or page references.

But only one year later, there appeared The

grete herball™ printed by Peter Treveris, which

was by and large a translation of the Grant

herbier. It had The registre of the chaptyres in

Latyn and in Englissche' in somewhat stricter

alphabetical order, and it contained also a subject

index, placed at the end of the book, though this

was not in alphabetical order and referred to

chapters: this was followed by a subject index

a revised edition which now had an index to Latin

plant names, each name being accompanied by

the English equivalent and with reference to

'chapters': this was followed by a subject index arranged in alphabetical order by the English

names of diseases and with page references to the

various plants that could be used in their treat

ment. This was a definite improvement, but the

illustrations were still rather coarse compared

with those that were then being printed in Ger

man herbals.

Meanwhile, Brunschwig's book had also been

translated from a Dutch version into English as

The vertuose boke of distyllacyonP It had a

Table of the names of the herbes' that occupied

more than four pages, arranged in most instances

by the Latin name, followed by its English

equivalent, but occasionally also by English

names only; alphabetization did not extend

beyond the first letter, and references were to

chapters. A typical example is the following

sequence:

Fusamus ca. cclxviii

Folia salvis/wyllow leues ca. cclxxvii

Flowres of woodbynde ca. cclxxxi

Flowres of borage ca. xvii

Flowres of wylde pervynke ca. xxvii

Flores fabarum/bene flowres ca. xxxii

Flowres of the willow ca. cclxxviii

The book also contained an extensive subject

index of 34 pages, printed in three columns and

comprising about 1,500 entries; it was preceded

by a detailed instruction and an example of how

to look up an item in the classified sequence:

'Item this present table is dyuyded in xxxi ptes

wherein ye shall fynde remedyes agaynste all

maner of dyseases or infyrmytees comyng or

fallynge unto mankynde from the hede unto

the fote. And these shall ye seke by the nobre

of youre chapytres, and by the regystre of

youre letters as ABCDE, etc. And seke to this

in the xii chapitre in the lettre D after that seke

for this in the xxvii chapitre in the lettre J.

And in the lxxxix chapytre in the letter A.'

The 'Register of letters' referred to the

paragraphs of each chapter which were indicated

in the margin by capital letters. In this manner, a

reference could easily be traced not only to its

page but also to its exact place on that page—a

helpful feature that is not retained in modern

indexes, except those of encyclopedias.

Early indexes in two scripts

The Renaissance herbalists were concerned as

much with the Greek names of plants as they were

with the Latin ones, since all of the sources on

which they based themselves (with the exception

of Pliny) were Greek. But because Latin was the

lingua franca of science, all herbals presented

plant names first in Latin and secondarily in

Greek, transcribed into Roman letters, and the

same method was also used in the indexes. Only

editions of the Greek text of Theophrastos and

Dioscorides (first printed in 1497 and 1499

respectively by Aldus Manutius) listed the plant

names in the original script.

But in 15^29 there appeared the second edition

of Barbaro's Latin translation of Dioscorides'

Materia medico,™ which constituted a major advance in the art of indexing. The work was now

provided with an extensive index of plant names,

'Index omnium quae toto hoc opere continentur',

printed on eight pages in two columns, and

arranged in strict alphabetical order, that is,

88 The Indexer Vol. 11 No. 2 October 1978

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Figure 4. Dioscorides, Materia medica, 1530. Name index in Latin and Greek.

alphabetized by all letters in a name, not only by

the first or at best second or third one, as had

been the custom till then. Furthermore, each

Latin name was followed by its Greek equivalent

printed in Greek script, with reference to a page

number, all set in one line, thus (Figure 4):

Abrotanus er/}(mrvov 347

Absinthium aipiv0iov 345

The most remarkable feature, however, was the

subject index entitled 'Index multorum quae

Graece Latineque toto hoc opere enarrata sunt',

occupying six pages with three closely printed

columns to each page. Here, an attempt was

made to list both Greek and Latin names of

diseases and organs of the body in one

alphabetical sequence but without recourse to

transliteration, printing each item in its original

script. The method adopted was as follows: all

Greek names beginning with a certain letter were

listed first, followed by Latin names with the

same or a phonemically equivalent letter. The

filing order, however, was according to the Latin

alphabet which resulted in the initial sequence

AM;B,5;K,X,C;A,Z);E,£;<t»)F;...

(Latin letters are shown in italics to distinguish

them from the Greek ones; note that Greek K and

X are considered to be the equivalent of Latin C.)

(Figure 5.)

In the same year, there appeared also a Latin

edition of Theophrastos' De causis plantarum™

with a commentary by Theodorus Gaza, which

had a 23-page index of all Greek plant names in

Greek script, followed by their Latin translation

as given in the main part of the book. (Previous

Latin editions of Theophrastos, published only a

few years earlier, had not had any indexes at all.)

These are probably the earliest instances of

multiscript indexes.

Such sophisticated methods of indexing did

not, however, find immediate application in

other herbals. An Index Dioscoridis20 was compiled in 1536 by Amatus Lusitanus (the

pseudonym of a Portuguese Jew, Jo2o Rodrigues

de Castello Branco) but despite this, from our

point of view, promising title, it was no more

than another compilation of plant descriptions,

the only 'index' in our sense being a table of

contents listing the Latin and Greek names of

plants in rough alphabetical order; most of the

Greek names were given in transcription, but

some were also in Greek script, interfiled with the

Latin ones. One must remember, though, that at

that time the word 'index' was often used also in

the sense of catalogue or list and not only as a

name for a finding device pinpointing the exact

place of an item in a book.*

*Conrad Gessner, in the preface to his Bibliotheca

universalis (Tiguri, 1545) said that he had included items

Thelndexer Vol. 11 No. 2 October 1978 89

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The Indexer Vol. 11 No. 2 October 1978

The large illustrated herbals

and their indexes

The decade of the 1530s witnessed a spec

tacular development of herbals, both in quantity

and in quality: the works became successively

larger, they were splendidly illustrated by some of

the best xylographers, and they were issued in

editions that were written entirely in the ver

nacular, as well as in Latin editions. Otto von

Brunfels published in 1530 the first volume of his

Herbarum vivae eicones, 21 one of the most beautifully produced books of the period with

pictures after watercolour drawings by the artist

Hans Weiditz, a pupil of DUrer. This Latin work

had only an 'Index contentorum singulorum'

since it was largely self-indexing. Encouraged by

the success of his work, Brunfels issued it in 1532

also in a German version entitled Contrafayt

Kreiiterb&chP In volume 1, all Latin and Greek plant names were listed in a fully alphabetical

index referring not only to pages but also to

sections of pages (each leaf being marked in the

margin by A and B on the recto, C and D on the

verso). Volume 2 contained an index of German

names, this one alphabetized only roughly by

first or second letter, and a subject index of

diseases and their treatment, occupying the last

five pages of the book. The fact that the book

had three indexes was prominently announced on

the title page (Figure 6).

In Brunfels' herbals as well as in some others

published at about the same time, Greek names

were still listed in transcribed form as had been

the case before Barbaro's Dioscorides edition of

1529. But in Jean Ruel's herbal De natura stir-

pium,23 first published in Paris in 1536 and reissued in Venice in 1538 in two large volumes,

Greek names in the 'Index copiosissimus' were

again printed in their original form (though some

were also given in transcription only). This index

indeed deserves its epithet: it covered 102 pages,

each of which had two columns of 45 lines, with

an average of 50 items indexed on every page, or

more than 50,000 entries for the whole book.

References were to pages, those in volume 2

having an asterisk after the page number (each volume was paged separately). Thus, the making

of indexes had advanced from rather crude and

poorly arranged listings around the turn of the

from 'typographi et bibliopolae plaerique... tabulas et

indices librorum a se impressorum aut venalium', but in

his later works which contained extensive name and

subject indexes (to be discussed below) he always used

the heading 'Index' in the modern sense.

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frmimpeat arcscfcfo ffp

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tfa a. xxxn.

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ttiiiff itwrrt lorige <jol&».

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Figure 6. Otto Brunfels, Contrafeyt Kreilterbuch, 1536. Title page; the indexes are listed in the paragraph after

the date, followed by a copyright notice.

century to carefully alphabetized, analytical and

comprehensive keys to textual information,

including elaborate typographical arrangement of items in different scripts.

The large herbals in Latin and German

dominated the scene, and they were also best sellers, printed and reprinted in large editions. Following their example, the French and Italian

herbals were now also provided with indexes of vernacular names in addition to the Latin ones. A

1536 edition of the Herbolario volgare,2* for

example, contained a four-page name index in

Latin and Italian (the latter still being preceded

by the prepositions dello, della, delli, or del) as

well as an Italian subject index of seven pages,

arranged by names of diseases, preceded by alle

or alia; the prepositions were disregarded in filing, the alphabetical arrangement being by the second word and its first or second letter.

The success of the German versions of herbals originally written in Latin led in 1539 to the

publication of the first major herbal written

Thelndexer Vol. 11 No. 2 October 1978 91

originally in German (though with plant names

still listed first in Latin), the New Kreiitter

Bucfi25 by Hieronymus Bock. The first edition

lacked pictures and was therefore a commercial

failure; the German apothecaries and botanists

had already become accustomed to the lavishly

illustrated work of Brunfels, and mere verbal

descriptions of plants in the medieval manner

were no longer marketable, even though from the

point of view of its indexes the book was better

than anything that had been published before. Its

index of Latin plant names was arranged strictly

alphabetically, and so was the index of German

plant names; interestingly, the former referred to

pages, while the latter gave references to chapters

and pages within a chapter. A third index was

arranged, also strictly alphabetically, by German

names of diseases.

The prolific. Frankfurt printer Christian

Egenolph, eager to capture his share in the

profitable business of publishing herbals,

commissioned in 1533 a KreUtterbftch® com piled by Eucharius Roeslin (Rhodion) from the

Gart and Brunschwig's Distillierbuch, with

pictures copied from Brunfels's work; a second

edition, published in 1540, followed the example

set by Bock, providing a Latin and German index

of plants, animals, and minerals, and a subject

index of diseases. Later editions of this very

popular compilation had even more elaborate

indexes. Another of Egenolph's products, the

Botaniconv compiled by Dietrich Dorsten from

material found in Brunfels, Ruel and Brasalova

in 1540, also had three separate name indexes:

Greek names were printed in the original script,

Latin and trade names were listed in a second

index, and German names formed a third index,

all with references to page numbers. The book

had, however, no subject index of organs and

diseases, and this was perhaps one of the reasons

why it was not reprinted (whereas Roeslin's

compilation went through numerous editions): it

could not successfully compete with herbals in which readers could find remedies for illnesses

more readily.

To countervail the practices of printers such

as Egenolph and many others who freely copied

both text and illustrations from successful

herbals, the authors of subsequent works often

sought to obtain copyright which was mostly

granted for five years. One of the earliest herbals

to display such an 'imperial privilege* was De

historia stirpium,7* published in 1542. It was the

work of one of the 'Fathers of Botany', the

famous physician and botanist Leonhart Fuchs.

One full page in the large folio volume was

devoted to the illustration of each plant which

was listed by its Latin name, accompanied by

Greek and German equivalents. There were three

separate name indexes, each one printed in a

different script or typeface, namely Greek in the

original script, Latin in roman, and German in

blackletter. These were followed by an extensive

subject index of diseases and afflictions. A whole

paragraph on the title page made readers aware

of these finding aids. Both the name and the

subject indexes were arranged in strictly

alphabetical order, as had been the case in Bock's

herbal. It seems that from then on the medieval

method of rough alphabetizing by first or second

letter only was finally abandoned, and indexes to

scholarly works were almost invariably

alphabetized by every letter in the words of an

entry.

Immediately after the Latin edition of his

herbal, Fuchs published in 1543 a German

version, the New Krettterb&chP Its indexes were

similarly arranged, except that in this edition,

aimed at a less sophisticated audience, the Greek

plant names were given in transcription and listed

in a combined Latin-Greek name index. The

subject index ('Kranckheytenregister') was

arranged in strict alphabetical order by German

names of diseases. The first entry shows the use

of a see reference; the second entry deals with a

condition that in our own time has become the

subject of TV commercials using all kinds of

euphemisms, whereas in Fuchs' time a spade was

called a spade:

Abnemeam leib. Such/Schwindsucht*

Achseln gestanck vertreiben, ccxj.df

(the reference being to chapter 311, part d)

(Figure 7).

The Swiss polyhistor Conrad Gessnenfc is best

known to librarians as the 'Father of

Bibliography' thanks to his Bibliographia

universalis. But Gessner was first and foremost a

physician and naturalist, and his lifelong interest

was the description of plants, their morphology

♦'Waning of the body, see Consumption.'

+'Armpit stench, how to get rid of.' The recommended

treatment is 'seeds of fenugreek boiled in water and

rubbed under the armpits.' Fenugreek (Trigonella foe-

numgraecum) happens to be one of the plants whose

name has been retained unchanged since the

Renaissance.

4:His name is generally spelled Gesner but this is in

correct; see Wellisch (1975), p. 152.

92 ThelndexerVoX. 11 No. 2 October 1978

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Figure 7. Leonhart Fuchs, New KretiterbGch, 1543. First page of subject index.

93

and their medical properties, based on field

studies and not merely on the texts of the an

cients. In his earliest botanical works (written in

1541 and 1S42, before he embarked on the

Bibliotheca) he sought to bring order to the

chaotic state to which the study of botany had

been reduced by the ever proliferating assignment

of vernacular and commercial names to Greek

and Latin plant names listed in the classical

sources.

Gessner's first botanical work, Historic/

plantaruni? was an alphabetically arranged dictionary of plant names culled from the

classical authors, with brief descriptions of each

plant (but without illustrations). It was provided

with a name and subject index referring to pages,

all in strict alphabetical order. The book was

printed in a handy format when first issued in

Basel (135x95 mm), and a pirated edition

printed within the same year in Venice was even

smaller (105x75 mm), truly a pocket-book,

perhaps the first on a scientific subject. Other

pirated editions were brought out by two Paris

printers who added to the classical Latin and

Greek names French ones and Latin trade names,

printed in the margins. The book became a best

seller because students of medicine began at that

time to study plants in their natural environment

rather than by way of arid philological

disputations on the texts of Aristotle or Pliny,

and they could look up the classical names in this

book without having to tote around several bulky

tomes when going out into the fields.

Gessner himself next turned his attention to a

more systematic display of classical and ver

nacular or commercial plant names and

published in 1542 his Catalogus plantarum? In this work, the main sequence of names was in

Latin, accompanied across the opening of two

pages by their equivalents in Greek, German,

French, and the Latin trade names by which

apothecaries used to refer to certain medicinal

herbs (Figure 8). This was both a terminological and a typographical innovation that exerted an

influence on later botanical and zoological works

as well as on our modern multilingual dic

tionaries which are often designed in the same

manner. In an appendix, Gessner also provided a

separate index of Latin and Greek names found

in the works of Dioscorides.

One of Gessner's closest friends was the

English physician and naturalist William Turner.

In 1538 (when he was only 18 years old) he

compiled a little booklet, Libellus de re herbaria

novus in quo herbarum aliquot nomina greca,

latina & anglica habes?2 yet despite this

promising title, it was no more than a brief

description of plants copied from the ancient

sources, arranged alphabetically by Latin names,

with a few transcribed Greek and occasional

names thrown in quite haphazardly; it had

neither an index nor illustrations. In 1543, after

he had finished his studies as a physician in Italy,

he met Conrad Gessner, with whom he had

earlier exchanged letters about plants and

animals, in Basle.

In 1544 he published Avium . . . historia^ a book listing the Latin names of birds in the works

of Pliny and Aristotle, with Greek, German and

English equivalents (but without providing any

index). Two years later, probably inspired by

Gessner's Catalogus, he compiled a similar work

on plants, this time in English, The names of

herbes in Greke, Latin, Englishe, Duche &

Frenches The arrangement of plants was, as in

the continental herbals, by Latin name, in each

case followed by the English one. The names in

other languages, however, were given only for

some plants and not systematically as in

Gessner's work. At the end of the book came a

list of English plant names, alphabetized by first

letter only, and without page references. This

was, therefore, a rather mediocre work compared

with contemporary German or French herbals. It

was only when he published his A new herball35 that Turner sought to approximate the level of

the continental works. The first volume,

published in 1551, was illustrated with woodcuts

copied from those in Fuchs' herbal. The plants

were listed in the order of their Latin names, but

with the English ones more prominently

displayed in larger type, thus: 'Of Wormwode.

Absinthium.' The Greek and sometimes also

German and French names were given in the

descriptive text. On the last page of the book

there was an index, The Table', containing only

English plant names in more or less strict

alphabetical order and with page references. It

concluded with the sentence: 'Here endeth the

table of the firste parte (God wyllynge) the nexte

yeare ye shall have the seconde.' It was not to be.

Turner, a Protestant, had to go into exile, and the

second volume appeared only in 1562 in Cologne;

this one had The Table' in the front matter but

was also no more than one single page, con

taining English and a few Latin names. In the

copy held by the U.S. National Library of

Medicine there are numerous additions in

handwriting, made by a 17th-century owner of

94 ThelndexerVol. 11 No. 2 October 1978

;!

CATALOGVS

Cacnbalum/pccies ftr

ychn

i, uSo

li ii

i'

/p

lani

nigris acini's*

Cadytas herba*

jCa!amagroftis,gramen harundu

naceum*

Calamintha, uulgo Calamentum,

cuius fpectes-numerantur trcs*

Eademnepcta.

10 Calamintha a

ltcra, Pulcgfum fyL

ueft

rcHc

rbar

ijs,

Calamintha ter

cia;

uulgo nepeta*

Calamus odo

ratu

s, uel unguenca^

iy rfus,uelaromatfcus,SuntquiGa

langam inc

erpr

ctet

ur,n

obis

uero

calamum di'Aum efle acor um*

C

mm soUm hor

tenf

c

Diof

cori

dttn

poni

tur*

tot.

abmilbn wol$mut

glci

rf) /abet x>il btQtgcr $5

f$m:t)Atfttn bln

ntcn

nitt

itin wte mtintsmatu

£tii4 myrnfe c

Calmu* /further

Calathiatiam i

'a Viola autumnatt

lo Icgc.

Calcifraga.VufeEmpetrotn

iffc

r ftcynbttd) mit

tx>i

l totcn

%6tncrcn<mbcrxvixx%cl

t£in ivaut xoa$$t by bem nic

er/

DcU[ode,[dab

$ wel

d?* Ifatn w

cijf

c l^f

CaliherbamArabes uocant,mma Gr

scum

nort

tenn

oniu

mcm*

ntimisprodeuntem,cquafal con

l j ft

citu

r qucm Atc

ali nominan t,

6C

c cmere pocula ui'

trea

Candida,

Frcquens eftetiara inGallifmari

timis. Leoniccnus hac Thelephio

arbi(rabatur,fed ill

e refelh'tur*

jo Calcha; uulgo calendula,fecudum

Ruelltumjquafi calthula*

Camacias tri

ttcl

fpedeSjapd* Theo

e phraftum,

Cannabis*

Figure 8

. Conrad Gcssner, Cata/ogus plantarum. 1542.

Lati

n, Greek, German and French plant names dis

play

ed ac

ross

opening.

4tto nomine*

the book, an indication that Turner's index was

not comprehensive and omitted many plants that

were actually dealt with in the book. Although

Turner is often considered to be the 'Father of

British Botany', his herbals fall considerably

short of those of his European colleagues, not

only in text and illustrations, but also indexes,

which are particularly poor compared to those in

the works of Fuchs and Ruel, not to mention the

elaborate indexes compiled by his friend Gessner.

Multilingual and multiscript indexes after 1540

The rapidly increasing use of vernaculars for

the pursuit of studies formerly conducted only in

Latin led soon to the publication of herbals and

other scientific books containing names of

animals, minerals, and metals in most of the

dozen or so literary languages of 16th-century

Europe.* They were often also accompanied by

multilingual and multiscript indexes.

Pier Andrea Mattioli, an Italian physician, was

the first to write a commentary on one of the

classic works of medicine in the vernacular. His

Di Pedacio Dioscoride. libri cinque delta historia

et materia medicinalej6 first published in 1544, was written 'in lingua volgare italiana' and was

provided with extensive name and subject indexes

as well with an explanation of Italian medical

terms. Only 10 years later was the work trans

lated into Latin, entitled Commentarii in sex

libros Pedacii Dioscoridis. Both the Italian and

the Latin version became very popular, and the

work is said to have been printed and reprinted in

32,000 copies—an enormous number for a book

with a limited audience, published at a time when

only a small segment of the population was

literate.

In 1S37, another Italian physician, Antonio

Musa Brasavola, published a compendium on

medicinal herbs, Examen omnium simplicium

medicamentorum? This first edition had only a

Latin name index with Greek names in trans

literated form, occupying 15 pages. When a

second edition was called for in 1545, it had an

'index locupletissimus omnium simplicium' on 50

pages, containing Latin names as well as Greek

ones, the latter both in the original script and in

transliterated form. The pages had both page

numbers and line indicators, and the index

•The European vernaculars of the early sixteenth

century were (in order of linguistic affinity and from

West to East): English, Dutch, Low and High German,

Icelandic, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Portuguese,

Spanish, Catalan, Czech, Polish, Russian, Hungarian.

referred each item to page and line, e.g.

Acatia 447.8

(i.e. page 447, line 8), a refinement not found

even in present-day indexes. Furthermore, the

text of the book now contained plant names also

in German, French, Spanish, Polish, and oc

casionally in Arabic, though no index was

provided for those languages.

Hieronymus Bock, realizing his earlier mistake

in publishing a herbal without pictures, now

reissued his Kreilter Buch7* in 1546 with 477 beautiful woodcuts, some of which were even

hand-coloured. This time, the book was an

immediate success, not only because of the

illustrations but probably also because of its

extensive indexes which made it a truly practical

handbook for the common man. The indexes

were proudly announced on the title page:

'Daruber findestu drei volkomene nutzliche

Register, unter welchen das erst die gemeine

Latinsche und Griechische Namen der Kreuter

hat, das ander die Deutsche, das dritt die

anzeig der Arznei und Rhat fur allerlei

kranckheiten und leibsgepresten.'-J"

The three indexes were arranged similarly to

those in the first edition, in strict alphabetical

order, with Greek names in transcribed form. A

typographical peculiarity is found in the German

index, where items are referred to leaves,

numbered with roman numerals, with a dot after

a number indicating the verso of the leaf. The

Latin index, however, refers to pages. Printers

and indexers apparently experimented with

various methods, and may at that time have

thought that a different typeface (blackletter for

German) also necessitated a separate method of

pagination.

The work went through seven editions, the last

one published in 1574. Encouraged by its success,

Bock (Latinizing his name to Tragus) issued it in

1552 also in a Latin edition, Destirpium. . . libri

/res,39 to which Conrad Gessner contributed the

preface and a bibliography of botanical writers,

'De rei herbariae scriptorum'. The work had five

separate name indexes, namely for Greek, Latin,

German, Arabic, and Hebrew plant names, all

alphabetically filed letter by letter. The Greek and

Hebrew names were printed in the original

scripts, with the Hebrew correctly printed from

t 'On these you will find three perfect useful indexes, of

which the first has the common Latin and Greek names

of herbs, the second the German, the third the

references to medications and advice for all manner of

diseases and afflictions of the body.'

96 The Indexer Vol. 11 No. 2 October 1978

right to left on two facing pages; the Arabic

names were listed in transcribed form in Roman

script. These indexes, occupying 48 pages, were

followed by a 21-page subject index containing

about 1,000 entries in Latin, referring to organs,

diseases, and their treatment. References were to

page numbers.

Bock's multilingual and multiscript indexes in

De stirpium were, however, not the first ones.

This honour must go to the indexes compiled by

Conrad Gessner. We have already mentioned

Gessner's early multilingual botanical work on

plant names. He had now become famous

throughout Europe both as a compiler of the

Bibliotheca universalis, and even more as the

author of a monumental zoological encyclopedia,

the Historia animalium.*0 In the first two

volumes of this five-volume work, published in

1SS1 and 15S4, Gessner included indexes to the

names of four-footed animals in Latin, Greek,

Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, German, French,

Spanish, English, Polish, Russian, and Czech, all

printed in separate sequences by language; the

Greek and Hebrew names were shown in the

original scripts, Arabic and Persian were partially

transliterated, partially rendered in Hebrew

letters. All entries were alphabetized letter by

letter (Figure 9).

From then onwards, most authors of herbals,

zoological treatises and other works on natural

history sought to emulate the example set by

Conrad Gessner. He influenced the work of most

of his contemporaries through his extensive

correspondence with a large number of

physicians, botanists, zoologists, mineralogists,

and other scholars of the natural sciences

throughout Europe, from Norway to Italy, and

from England to Poland, always eager to add

new names of plants, animals or minerals to his

extensive collections, and to have them displayed

in successive editions of his own works as well as

in those of his colleagues and friends.*

Gessner's contribution to Bock's herbal was

thus not limited to providing a preface and

bibliography but his influence can clearly be seen

in the multilingual indexes of the work. During

the same period, Gessner also edited the Lexicon

•The Dictionarium latinogermanicum (Zurich:

Froschauer, 1SS6) by Johannes Frisius, one of Gessner's

closest friends, contains plant names taken from

Gessner's works, and the names of animals and plants

listed in Gessner's encyclopedias were cited as the most

authoritative ones in other contemporary dictionaries

(Peters 1974, p. 27-35).

rei herbariae trilingue^ whose author, David

Kyber, had died of the plague. The synoptic

arrangement of Latin, Greek and German plant

names also shows Gessner's systematic methods.

Practically all new herbals or new editions of

older works published after 15S0 contained plant

and animal names not only in Latin and Greek

but also in a number of vernaculars. The

elaborate and sometimes ornate title pages that

became fashionable at that time always an

nounced this feature prominently, especially if

indexes in all or most of the languages were also

provided. A few examples may suffice. A

commentary on Dioscorides by Amatus Lusitanus,

published in 1553, had the title In Dioscoridis

Anazarbei De medica materia . . . quum passim

simplicia Graece, Latine, Halice, Hispanice,

Germanice & Gallice proponantur . . ,42 While

the same author's earlier Index Dioscoridis,20 published in 1536, had had no indexes at all, this

one now had separate Latin and Greek indexes

(the latter in the original script), and a com

prehensive subject index, though there were as yet

no indexes to the vernacular names which were

listed only in the text itself. Another example is a

1559 edition of Roeslin's Kre&terb&ch^ whose title page announced:

'Mit fleissigen vollkommenen Registern in

sechserley Spraachen, nemlich, Griechisch,

Lateinisch, Italianisch, Frantzttsisch,

Spanisch, Teutsch.'-f

A revised edition of Bock's Kreiitterbticfi* published in Strassburg in 1577 had five indexes:

one in Greek script for Greek plant names, a

transliterated Arabic name index, a Latin and

German name index, and a classified subject

index of diseases, occupying 21 leaves. Finally

(and here we come to the end of the 16th century),

John Gerarde's The herball or generall historie of

plantes** published in 1597 (the first English

herbal comparable in scope and quality of

illustrations with the works of Fuchs or Bock), had five separate name indexes, occupying

almost 50 pages: an 'Index latinus'; an index of

apothecaries' trade names, Arabic names (in

transcription), and 'barbaric' names; a con

cordance to plant names not used by the author;

an index of English plant names; and a 'Sup

plement . .. unto the generall table . . . from the

mouthes of plaine and simple countrie people'

(thus following an example set by Gessner who in

his works and letters had stressed the importance

t'With diligent perfect indexes in six languages, namely

Greek, Latin, Italian, French, Spanish, German.'

Thelndexer Vol. 11 No. 2 October 1978 97

EORVNDEM ANIMALIVM INDEX ALPHABETICVS, CT COPIOSIOR,

A Dare 40

"Ballecola nel ba Icccara,uox barba* ra pro gcncrc laccr=

t* ii

Barchora nomen bar* barum 105*

Bardati 40 Borax 60 Bufocornimis 60

Clialcidicalaccrta 1 Chain's 1

Chamarlcon 2,

Corcfufa ftitecordirlus

47

Craflauclcraflanciurn barbans pro ranun*

culo uiridi 61

Crocodilus 7

CrocodiU tcrrcftris 11 Laccrttis a8

Laccrtidiucrfi 59

Laccrcarcralfiifimc 59 bicubitalcs, & pcrc=*

gri'ux Jtucilx 59,40

Laccrrus aquaticus 17 Laccrtachalcidica 1 Laccrttis; Murtcn(is 59

Laccna l-'acctana 51.)

L.nci ta pillinnu 39

Lain u lolai is 40

L.kciiauciuti.iu.i ml

pliai mail's 40

Lacctra ucrniiailaris

40

Laccrms ui'n'dis

Miles

56

10$

Miis aquatilis 105

Wus maiimis 105.105'

Ophiotnachus 56

Opliiouicus 56

Kana 41

lvcnx citrine fri

liana comma 60

Rana dryopctcs ff

Uanagibboih fS

Ranx lacunalcs uiru

des 61

Rana Hnida 61

Raux nurta: )S

Ranxmarinx 6i.m:i<

rinarrubcxjibfd.

Rancriibctxpaluflics

&tcrrcftrcs f*)

Ramfcmcoidcs 60

Ranxtcinporari.c ^y

Rana ucucnata foilU

Its 74 Ranuculus Hindi's ^> Rimatrix Rubctaivihua

Rubcca gibbofa Salamandra

Scincoidcs rana; Scincus

Scps 1

Stellio S4

Stclliotrafmaiinus 8c

7$

74

60

ai

Taratufa baibnn's

pro flcllionc 84

Tartuca barbaric 91

Tcihidincs in. gcncrc 90

Tclhidincs qua: in a*

qua dttlci due palirs

itrifiuc fluecc ctcgiit

Tciindo luraria >oj

TcHudo manna 105: Teftudopolypus no

Tcliudotcrrciiris 99

ioj Zytyron

INDEX NOMI>4VM

l'lcbiJicorimi. «jnrt«« nuiii Ai.i.'mc .! .> v il'.il

il.uc.i.Klru\i:iHi:../'.i.i =

bicacjiK'.'d.iiii al itrticu

himpiviixum lubcnt,

qttcm ui'.ivxi :uia!p!i:is

bcciorajncm.uci;!cxi=

iiui.s. Suncqir.c a,

taiiftun pioal

habciu.

k«V^s 41

DabuciaWabAr.8.2.1

DafdaAr. 4* Adhaya Ar, 19 alias

alhadaic

. Di'pJidalui Ar, 41

Valjra Ar, S>-

S3ih Ar. 19

KO^a'-n Chald. 19

k^u'pn Chald, 49

COS 91.19

Alhadaic ucl Alliatha

ic Arabicc. 19, uidc

f

tVO 11.

19

19

4*

Vi dca Arab,

8

41

j 4a

fvj7 Chald. 8

Vicl ucl alurcl Ar.59.

Sc.conijnoautc pru

mam liuitis uocis lite

ranirll'cain.nam 5C

guaiilamultis ioibi

tur, & ukico in alijs

etiain niu fypcingu.

comiciti.

Vrclaqnatirus ai

Guurfl Ar.11.59.8c iii

dcpaulatcS^cl ^^ Ar. 59

s\sv:y Ar. Hide fiipra

iuDalctli Alhadaic. 19

Ar, 8

7a 19

61,41,11 «2V Arab, 6

&v 418

V

Saambras Ar. ab alijs

j'amabras fcriLncutJa mambras

00

91 ^ 9

banubras,uidc Saam;

bras

Sa.rambras, uidcSa= ambras

Seen Ar. 4° iklianduir ucl afchan

churAr. ii

Si nnbras, uidc Saaim

bras

Thab Ar, 8

AIfr.1-.au1 41

k.V';sv< CIj. 91

riO*ZT> timfecli Ar. ,.8 alij sli'tcr fcribfir,Tif«

ma/l'iicfaiach, Tcm

fa.Alrcnfa.

Tcnchca Ar. 8

voces quxdam

Hcbraicis lircris fcri»

ptar, quas Rabtnt ant

rcrcntiorcs lud.-vi ex

diucrfis lir.guis, HiTpa

ru'capr:v«i:itim £t

Gallfra inuttia=>

Ci fuut.

9

limax 19

l

19

wykyry a Gcrmanica uocccglosquglaccr turn (igntlicat 29

VOCABVLA

Pcifica.

*,« 19

2C«t> 19

6RAECA,

103;

84

29.84

4

MuC

84

40

I03

19

II

~'$ x Grgcc uulgo

74 4*

84

56

74

74 18

17

40

40

I

tihtCtKTl

Figure 9. Conrad Ges:

Index.

84

ih/dem

74

Gagado 91.105

Gabprgo 91.105

Lag;.rvfixa a«) L:v?,ariita i»)

l..fg;ino 29 R..IW 4»

C)iirrcii£rott Oiiillcithorrlc ©cbilctrott/

1111

74

91

S.ipoclciuuo 61

'I .ni:.rtii;a loc

TC 91 piiitrani<i<U p6l

* ••f«'«t 99

^1 sn uorabuUim

rct-ciuiciis Cjiau.c

«>-.4°

IT A LIC A.

Bifca (ancllaria <)•

Hofla i" Nona ('i

Horn; circa N*oroimi

hullo " 01 Uuilo, biifla, bullonc

61

(Iiiutro 61

( h.m lv li.vris bullo 01

(\>lon'iia <)l

ClillllWIU.l 01

CALLICA,

AtcWcr.nc 7$

Aii.-lLuc 7$

irca Nc

(iOolt

oioniim 91

r.l.n:ik 7>"

( l-.in.il)en 1

( i.i| .nit 61

( ici« dilo 7

< -u«iUa ff

lil.olliC ))'

C iicnotullc 41

I ni.suIl- 29

I \.^uicticri!c 56

i\ a u'li Nt.muni's 7^

l\ cr.ii'.lc 5>"

75:

17

75:

61

7J"

ilfit I l-ndiis ^ 4x

n«;|?|> S^xcnice C-i

^\cufic{d;lc yy ttdultl'rott ( 91 (3dulri'r«tmifiiffcn \vi;|jcr 105 Jin nicer uy

Sd(&toc Faldns

SlIIH'O

1 ..1 11c

4a

2-7

17

CkiKWi 10;

91

l.tu 11 i.i a«7

l.l'»riil.'a 2.)

M.a.i!..iu\-h 37

K:n\ iul!.i <i

]x;ujiu> a.)

K ac ula fc

Kam;:no 19. (*i

Kaiu /|i

Ran.uioto « 5-5-

U.inotihi>» j>*

R;.noiKhiadcrubctto

17

Rolpo

Salamandra

Tarantula

Tartorlia' 'Tartuca

Tamigclia

TO

Tcduginc Tel in nia

1'acto

75*

84

91

91

91

91

91

'I l:;'.rJ\CU«.omi yf

Tcirtuc 91

'I or me des boys loo

'loraicdcnur icy

Wd

C I-R M A NICA.

19

i- 19

7

19

19

41

74

ANGLICA,

Frcgg

Lilian]

Lykud

41

'lode

'J'cncyfc 9'

11. l r r 1 r a,

Gtflt icil.

Grlilicr 19

rcliris

61

HtSPAKICA.

*r

61

f 8.41

r 9«

05iiltcittrorrlc 60 41

Zabjirawna yy

IN APPHNDICE

dc<](i.:dii(pciiiluis uu

uipamhxcccu*

iiiicntur,

Vrus pagina j

P. i Ion 4.

liil'6 alluis Scoticus4

lo

IO

Tragclaphus lo

l)lat)ccro4& Hippca

lapluis ii

Axis u

HjibalusAfricanus u

lWnoccros ii

Canes Scctici trin gc»

nci uni 15. fC 14

:|'iii aurcus, c,ui fC

1 14

finiitfi u in

generis 14

f uniiruni genera di«

uci .'a iy

1 ;:iurinusuc!cynoce

pl>a)tis 16

P.iHuh; liurrancfornig

in Norucgia 16

Criccrus 17

Vulpcs 18

Sci u rus Gcmlus iS

Cuniculusucl porccN

his Indtcus 19

Taius 19

1 tics r.ibctlii, quant

liyanain elTc Pctrus

l.c'IcriMsconijcuio

Icl.nc union 41

IMns'.tiUMis 44

(-.idcr 44

Linra 4j

l.npi:smarinus 4;

Jv'a» aquatic us 44

APPENDIX DE

Olijpjiis.

CIirma:!con 34

Ciccvdilus Nilcttcus

Croccdilus tcrrcfiris

St inci\s 4j

(.ou.ulus 16

Ran.x 46

Tcdudincs 47 Salamandra fida 47

tints.

loj

y

T:u audits 6 Cinzclla 7

Cci mis p.ilniams 8

btri-pliccros duplex 0

toria animalium, 1554. Index to vol. 2.

A TABLE, WHEREIN IS CONTAINED THE

Nature, Vertue,and Dangers of all the Herbes,

Trees and Tlantsjfthe which are {pokenin thisprcfent

Herbal!.

\ To curemaliciousvlcersofthe Almonds in the ihrote,86j,a. To t.ike away thehot foellmrji of the Almonds in thcthrotc,

TGcod againft Aborcmcnr,6i4,a. ' Againft inflammationsofthe Almondi,ii?4,a. To prouoks women* natural! 3ccrt>cnW, 57, b. looVe Coodagainft old (welling* oi the Almonds inthethrore, jj4,a,

Tcrmcs, 410,^587,3.1163,1.

Goodagainfl: 5ct;?0,ti4,c. TohealcthcAlmondsofthcthrote/38,h. GoodforAchctinih; hands andfeete,987,e. ^/««i/»r«»r*»M,ancxccllcnt and familiar purger,4to,g. Goodagainfl or totjke away all Aches proceeding of 3 eolde Tohelpc ihedifcafc^/</'^M,88le.lofikehjire, tiJ9,h.i36i,a.

caufe,54O,f.i34't,d. To purge thedifeafc called Mfhtu, which caufcth /pottine* in Good (or all Aches in the ioints,ioi6,a.ti4,c.toi6,b.iofo,n. the bodic,j 14^859/. Agatofl all manner of Aches in any part of tliobodic, 187,1.616, Tohelpcihe^ngJM1alwcllin(»ofthethrote^4j,k.ii7i,ni. b.7«,e. Tohelpev*rcnchesofthe3tlUlcff, 114,1.

To mitigate the Achcandpaineof feeble Iims,i339,b, Good againft S.3?nthottfr0 hie, 413,6. Ji7,b. 678,3. iofr,tj. Tohelpe old Aches in the armes,hipt and Icri,ii9,b 433,5.^7, io74,k.tiy3,a.izo7,c. 1:78,!).

h.7ii,e.iU9,d. To appeafe or aflxvajc S.Anthonieifircrpecdily,6o,Ch.i6r,b. To abate or helpe Aches of thefinewesand ioinu, 6j,a. iji,b. 1^9,3.^^.411,3.471/.

8j5,b. io5O,n. To core SAnchonics fire, 169,3. b.c. 198,6 }i8,f. 414,3.648^. To rcmedic the Ache of iheHucklebone, ip8ab. »9,d. Hi9,d. ^tti.i.66o,a.667,c.68o,a.86o,f.i 144,1". njo,c.

To mitigate all manner of Achcs,«56,f. Tokcepe^lpprtrclHrom mothes.j 19,3. lookcClothei.

To take away Aches of the armcsindlhoulders in fhorr fpace, TodcftroicordnucawaylicefromApp3rell,399,e. 7i»,e. Tu procure or prouokc«Dppttlte to roeatr, ^5,3.190,9.749,3.

Tocoi)fumcorfcourcawaythc^W;/(beingvlccrsinthchcid, 241,a.871^. 938,c. 3ii,b. 419,3.418^,578^.59

To procure the ̂ ftt of gencration,i3J3,d,lookc To prouoke bo- iz8i ,s. 1517,^. 1314,1.134 t.d. dily luO. To rcftore Appetite dcraicd,849,d. 1113 ,g

Figure 10. John Gerarde, The herbal!, 1597. First page of subject index.

of gathering names of plants and animals from

farmers, shepherds and fishermen). The subject

index, though quite extensive (it occupied 24

pages, set in two columns) was less well arranged

than some of its predecessors (Figure 10): it listed

diseases alphabetically by catchwords printed in

blackletter, but these were preceded by arbitrary

introductory phrases, beginning with

To cause Abortment 54e, 696n, 970b

Good against abortment 624a

To provoke women's natural Accidents 57b,

looke Termes

and ending with

Good against Yexing 318a

It was probably more difficult to find remedies

for an illness in this kind of index than it was for

a reader of the very earliest subject index to a

herbal, the one in the Gart der Gesundtheit,

compiled more than a century earlier.

Conclusion

The techniques of compiling name and subject

indexes were thus well established by 1SS0, and

many works of non-fiction published during the

second half of the 16th century and throughout

the next two centuries had extensive indexes,

often printed in more than one script when Greek

or Hebrew words or names had to be indexed in

theological, botanical, or zoological treatises. In

this respect, these indexes were even superior to

most of those produced in modern times which

almost invariably resort to Romanization of

words or names originally written in a non-

Roman script.

The rendering of such names in Roman script

is, of course, necessary and useful, but often

(particularly in scientific works) it would also be

helpful to have the name of an author or a place

100 ThelndexerVoL 11 No. 2 October 1978

spelled out in the original Cyrillic or Greek,

especially since there are so many competing

Romanization schemes, and no two authors use

them consistently; the display of the original

script is even more important for Chinese and

Japanese names which are entirely ambiguous if

rendered in Romanized form only. I have dealt

with these issues in more detail elsewhere

(Wellisch, 1978), and it would go far beyond the

framework of this paper to elaborate on them or

on the technical problems involved. Be it enough

to say that if the typesetters of the Renaissance

could produce multiscript indexes, using

laborious and time-consuming manual methods,

it should now be very much easier to achieve this

with the help of computer-controlled photo-

typesetting and other innovative techniques.

Perhaps we have, after all, something to learn

from the very earliest multilingual and

multiscript indexes compiled by the herbalists.

Unfortunately lack of time precluded any

discussion of Dr Wellisch's paper.

References to herbals

1. Herbarium continens plantarum figuras ... In

Gasparrini, Tullia. Un inedito erbario far-

maceutico medioevale. Firenze: Olschki, 19S2.

2. Rufinus. The herbal of Rufinus. Edited from the

unique manuscript by Lynn Thorndike. Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 1946.

3. Macer, Aemilius. Incipit liber Macri... de naturis

qualitatibus et virtutibus octuagintaocto her

barum. Neapoli: impressus per Arnoldum de

Bruxella, 1477.

4. Apuleius Barbarus. The herbal of Pseudo-

Apuleius... Leyden: Brill, 1935.

5. Herbarius Maguntie impressus. Mainz: Peter

Schtffer, 1484.

6. Gart der Gesundtheit. Mainz: Peter Schttffer,

1485.

7. Ortus sanitatis. Moguntia: Jacobus Meydenbach,

1491.

8. Dioscorides. Joannis Baptistae Egnatii Veneti in

Dioscoridem ab Hermolao Barbaro tralatum

annotamenta . . . Pedacii Dioscoridis Anazarbei

De medicinali materia ab eodem Barbaro latinitate

primum donati libri quinque. Venetiis: [s.n.],

1516.

9. Macer, Aemilius. De herbarum virtutibus . . .

Basileae: apud J. F. Emmeum, 1527.

10. Arbolaire... Besancon: Peter Metlinger, 11487 or

1488].

11. Lejardin de sante. Ortus sanitatis translate de latin

enfrancois. Paris: A. Verard, [1501?].

12. Brunschwig, Hieronymus. Liber de arte

distillandi. De simplicibus. Dasbuch der rechten

kunst zQ distilieren die eintzigS ding . . .

Strassburg: Joh. Gruninger, 1500.

13. Herbolario volgare . . . Venetia: A. de Bindoni,

1522.

14. The noble lyfe & natures of man of bestes ser-

pentys fowles Afisshes. An early English version

of Hortus sanitatis: a recent bibliographical

discovery by Noel Hudson. London: Quaritch,

1954.

15. Here begynnyth a newe mater the whiche . . . is

called an herball. . . London: Richarde Banckes,

1525. Modern edition: An herbal [1525], edited

and transcribed into modern English, with an

introduction by Sanford V. Larkey and Thomas

Pyles. New York: Scholars facsimiles and reprints,

1941.

16. The grete herball whiche geveth parfyt knowledge

... London: Peter Treveris, 1526.

17. Brunschwig, Hieronymus. The vertuose boke of

Distyllacyon of the waters of all maner of herbes

... London: Laurence Andrew, [1527?].

18. Dioscorides. In Dioscoridem corollarium libri

quinque. Adiectus est index eorum quae hisce

explicantur, quern post Dioscoridis indices con-

sulto locavimus. Coloniae: apud Joan. Soterem,

1530.

19. Theophrastos. De causis plantarum libri VI,

Theodoro Gaza interprete. Lutetiae: ex officina

Christian! Wechel, 1529.

20. Amatus Lusitanus. Index Dioscoridis . . . Ant-

verpiae: vidua M. Caesaris, 1536.

21. Brunfels, Otto von. Herbarium vivae eicones . . .

Argentorati: apud Joannem Schottum, 1530.

22. Brunfels, Otto von. Contrafeyt KreUterbuch.

Strassburg: Hans Schott, 1532.

23. Ruel, Jean. De natura stirpium libri tres . . .

Venetiis: apud loan. Baptistum Pederzanum,

1538.

24. Herbolario volgare. Venetia: A. de Bindoni, 1522.

25. Bock, Hieronymus. New Kreiktter Bitch . . .

Strassburg: Wendel Rihel, 1539.

26. Roeslin, Eucharius. Kreiltterbuch . . . Franckfurt

am Mayn: Chr. Egenolff, 1540.

27. Dorsten, Dietrich. Botanicon, continens herbarum

atiorumque simplicium . . . descriptiones.

Francofurti: Chr. Egenolphus, 1540.

28. Fuchs, Leonhart. De historia stirpium . . .

Basileae: in officina Isengriniana, 1542.

29. Fuchs, Leonhart. New KreUterbtich . . . Basel:

Isingrin, 1543.

30. Gessner, Conrad. Historia plantarum et vires . . .

Basileae: apud R. Wynter, 1541.

31. Gessner, Conrad. Catalogus plantarum Latine,

Graece, Germanice & Gallice . . . Tiguri: apud

Christoph. Froschoverum, 1542.

32. Turner, William. Libellus de re herbaria novus...

Londini: apud Ioannem Byddellium, 1538.

33. Turner, William. Avium praecipuarum quorum

apud Plinium et Aristotelem mentio est, brevis &

succincta historia . . . Coloniae: I. Gymnicus,

1544.

34. Turner, William. The names of herbes in Greke,

The Indexer Vol. 11 No. 2 October 1978 101

Latin, Englishe, Duche & Frenche . . . London:

John Day, 1S48.

35. Turner, William. A newe herball . , . London:

Mierdman, 1551.—The seconde parte of William

Turner's herball. . . Collen: Arnold Birckman,

1562.

36. Mattioli, Per Andrea. Di Pedacio Dioscoride

Anazarbeo libri cinque delta historia et materia

medicinale... Venetia: Bascarini, 1544.

37. Brasavola, Antonio Musa. Examen omnium

simplicium medicamentorum . . . Lugduni: apud

Ioannem & Franciscum Frellaeos, 1537.

38. Bock, Hieronymus. Kreilter Buck . . . Strassburg:

W.Rihel, 1546.

39. Bock (Tragus), Hieronymus. De stirpium... libri

tres . . . Argentorati: excudebat Wendelinius

Rihelius, 1552.

40. Gessner, Conrad. Historia animalium. Tiguri:

apudC. Froschoverum, 1551-87.

41. Kyber, David. Lexicon rei herbariae trilingue . . .

Argentinae: apud V. Rihelium, 1553.

42. Amatus Lusitanus. In Dioscoridis Anazarbei De

medico materia . . . Venetiis: apud Gualterum

Scotum, 1553.

43. Roeslin, Eucharius. Kreuterbuch . . . Franckfort

am Meyn: Bey Christian Egenolffs Erben, 1559.

44. Bock, Hieronymus. Kreiltterbuch, Strassburg:

JosiasRihel, 1577.

45. Gerarde, John. The herball or general! historie of

plantes. London: John Norton, 1597.

References to other works

Daly, Lloyd W. Contributions to a history of

alphabetization in antiquity and the Middle Ages.

Bruxelles: Latomus, 1967.

Peters, Manfred. 'Einleitung*. In his Konrad Gessner.

Deutsche Namen der Fische und Wassertiere . . .

Aalen: Scientia Verlag, 1974.

Sarton, George. 'The scientific literature transmitted

through the incunabula.' Osiris 5 (1938): 41-245.

Thompson, Reginald Campbell. The Assyrian herbal.

London: Luzac, 1924.

Wellisch, Hans H. 'Conrad Gessner: a bio-

bibliography.' Journal of the Society for the

Bibliography of Natural History 7 (2) (June 1975):

151-247.

Wellisch, Hans H. The conversion of scripts: its nature,

history and utilization. New York: Wiley, 1978.

Wellisch, Hans H. 'Script conversion and

bibliographical control of documents in dissimilar

scripts: problems and alternatives.' International

Library Review 10 (1978): 3-22.

Witty, Francis J. 'Early indexing techniques: a study of

several book indexes of the 14th, 15th, and early

16th centuries.' Library Quarterly 35 (1965): 141-

148.

Witty, Francis J. 'The beginnings of indexing and

abstracting: some notes towards a history of in

dexing and abstracting in antiquity and the Middle

Ages.' TheIndexer S (1973): 193-198.

Supplemental readings on herbals

Arber, Agnes. Herbals: their origin and evolution. 2nd

ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1938.

Heilmann, Karl Eugen. KrQuterbUcher in Bild und

Geschichte. Munchen: K. Kdlbl, 1966.

Klebs, A. C. Herbals of the 15th century. Chicago:

[s.n.], 1918.

Nissen, C. Herbals of five centuries. Zurich: L'Art

ancien, 1958.

Schmid, Alfred. Ober alte Krauterbdcher. Bern: Haupt,

1939.

Discussion of Archie TurnbuU's paper (see

pp 73-80)

Dr Holmstrom asked how far the jurisdiction

of the publisher's editor extended over the index,

and was told that the initial decision whether to

have an index relates to cost; the index is then

controlled by the copy-editor. The author should

not be expected to provide or pay for the index

any more than for the jacket. The indexer, like

the author, is subject to space restrictions and

editorial discretion. Mrs Thomas asked whether a

specially knowledgeable indexing editor might be

appointed, but Mr Turnbull thought such might

be difficult to place in the hierarchy; un

derstanding of indexing technique is one of the

skills of publishers' editors. With a clear initial

brief there is no reason for tension between editor

and indexer. Mr Chisholm asked whether the

index was seen as a selling point; Mr Turnbull

thought that little research had been done on this,

but as publishers sell to booksellers rather than to

consumers, no strong demand for indexes is felt.

Mr Bakewell referred to press reviews con

cerning, and his own experience of, American

editing as compared to British; it was agreed that

in this regard, perhaps, 'We do too little, the

Americans far too much'.

Gji An interesting sidelight on the com-

** mendation by the Wheatley Medal Award

panel of Hebe Jerrold's index to Hamilton

Bailey's emergency surgery, is that Miss Jerrold is

not a member of the medical profession. This

issue is now before the American courts; whether

a person who does not have professional

qualifications in a particular field is capable of

indexing in that field, and whether if so they

should earn the same as a person holding a

professional degree, for doing the same work.

102 ThelndexerVol. 11 No. 2 October 1978