I believe it was this resemblance, inevitable to any careful and close
observer, which first suggested the use of the plant in throat diseases to
physicians; guided, as in those first days of pharmacy, chiefly by
imagination. Then the German name for one of the most fatal of throat
affections, Braune, extended itself into the first name of the plant,
Brunelle.
10. The truth of all popular traditions as to the healing power of herbs
will be tried impartially as soon as men again desire to lead healthy
lives; but I shall not in 'Proserpina' retain any of the names of their
gathered and dead or distilled substance, but name them always from the
characters of their life. I retain, however, for this plant its name
Brunella, Fr. Brunelle, because we may ourselves understand it as a
derivation from Brune; and I bring it here before the reader's attention as
giving him a perfectly instructive general type of the kind of degradation
which takes place in the forms of flowers under more or less malefic
influence, causing distortion and disguise of their floral structure. Thus
it is not the normal character of a flower petal to have a cluster of
bristles growing out of the middle of it, nor to be jagged at the edge into
the likeness of a fanged fish's jaw, nor to be swollen or pouted into the
likeness of a diseased gland in an animal's throat. A really uncorrupted
flower suggests none but delightful images, and is like nothing but itself.
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