Arabian and Grecian stuff as is daily brought from those
parties which lie in another clime? And therefore the bodies of such as
dwell there are of another constitution than ours are here at home. Certes
they grow not for us, but for the Arabians and Grecians. And albeit that
they may by skill be applied unto our benefit, yet to be more skilful in
them than in our own is folly; and to use foreign wares, when our own may
serve the turn, is more folly; but to despise our own, and magnify above
measure the use of them that are sought and brought from far, is most
folly of all: for it savoureth of ignorance, or at the leastwise of
negligence, and therefore worthy of reproach.

Among the Indians, who have the most present cures for every disease of
their own nation, there is small regard of compound medicines, and less of
foreign drugs, because they neither know them nor can use them, but work
wonders even with their own simples. With them also the difference of the
clime doth show her full effect. For, whereas they will heal one another
in short time with application of one simple, etc., if a Spaniard or
Englishman stand in need of their help, they are driven to have a longer
space in their cures, and now and then also to use some addition of two or
three simples at the most, whose forces unto them are thoroughly known,
because their exercise is only in their own, as men that never sought or
heard what virtue was in those that came from other countries. And even so
did Marcus Cato, the learned Roman, endeavour to deal in his cures of
sundry diseases, wherein he not only used such simples as were to be had
in his own country, but also examined and learned the forces of each of
them, wherewith he dealt so diligently that in all his lifetime he could
attain to the exact knowledge but of a few, and thereto wrote of those
most learnedly, as would easily be seen if those his books were extant.
For the space also of six hundred years the colewort only was a medicine
in Rome for all diseases, so that his virtues were thoroughly known in
those parts.

In Pliny's time the like affection to foreign drugs did rage among the
Romans, whereby their own did grow in contempt. Crying out therefore of
this extreme folly, lib. 22, cap. 24, he speaketh after this manner--

"Non placent remedia tam longe nascentia, non enim nobis gignuntur,
immo ne illis quidem, alioquin non venderent; si placet etiam
superstitionis gratia emantu