A passing reference may be made here to a book which is rather of the nature of a local flora than a herbal, entitled ‘Prosperi Alpini de plantis Ægypti,’ which was published at Venice in 1592. It contains a number of wood-cuts, which appear to be original. The one reproduced (Text-fig. 47) represents _Salicornia_, the Glasswort. The author was a doctor who went to Egypt with the Venetian consul, Giorgio Emo, and had opportunities of collecting plants there. He is said to have been the first European writer to mention the Coffee plant, which he saw growing at Cairo. Prospero Alpino eventually became Professor of Botany at Padua, and enriched the botanical garden of that town with Egyptian plants. 4. THE HERBAL IN SWITZERLAND. Among the many scientific men, whose names are associated with Switzerland, one of the most renowned is Konrad Gesner (Plate X), who was born at Zurich in 1516, the son of a poor furrier. His taste for botany was due, in the first instance, to the influence of his uncle, a protestant preacher. Konrad went to France to study medicine, but in Paris, the richness of the libraries, and the delight of associating with learned men, tempted him away from his special subject into a course of omnivorous reading. After an interval of school teaching at Zurich, he betook himself to Basle, where he entered more methodically upon the study of medicine, at the same time attempting to support himself by working at a Latin dictionary. However, after a short period of student life, he found the expense too great, and was obliged to abandon it, and to take a post as teacher of classics in Lausanne. He had received assistance at different times from his native town, which again came to his help at this juncture, and generously allotted to him a “Reisestipendium,” for the continuance of his medical studies. He indeed owed much to Zurich, for, after taking his doctorate, he was appointed first to the professorship of Philosophy there, and then to that of Natural History, which he held until he died of the plague in his forty-ninth year. [Illustration: Text-fig. 48. “Lachryma Iob” = _Coix lachryma-Jobi_ L., Job’s Tears [Simler, Vita Conradi Gesneri, 1566].]