Jain Biology

Author(s): Jethalal S Zaveri, Mahendramuni
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati

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The middle Ages constituted a period of relative inactivity in European science as the period was one of great political changes, of superstition and often of insufficient food, poor sanitation, disease, unceasing warfares—conditions which were inimical to the progress of science.
During the medieval period—between 800 and 300 A.D. Botanical gardens were established in various parts of the Arabian Empire. Baghadad became a centre for the translation and editing of ancient manuscripts into Arabic. However, not until much after, did the study of plants resume the course. During the sixteenth century, botanical gardens became popular and by the middle of the seventeenth century, there was hardly a university or a medical school in Europe without a garden of medicinal herbs and shrubs. Again, however, the study continued to centre around their food and medicinal values.
Modern Botanical Study
Thus the development of Biology, being a science of the living, came much later than the development of physics and chemistry, which dealt with inanimate matter. Many of the foundation stones of modern Botany, divorced from superstition and fantasy, were laid during the closing decades of eighteenth century. TAXONOMY, the study of plant classification and relationships and MORPHOLOGY, the study of plant structure, were the first to develop because they required little technical apparatus. Details of tissue and cell structure had to await the discovery and perfection of magnifying lenses, as a result of which plant ANATOMY began its career.
One of the greatest figures in the entire history of botany was Carolus Linnaeus, a Swedish botanist, whose investigations upon the naming and classification of plants were the most extensive and exceedingly effective in stimulating succeeding generations of botanists to taxonomic research. After the basic principles of chemistry and physics were established, PLANT PHYSIOLOSY, the study of functions aroused interest and grew rapidly. Along with these, there arose PLANT PATHOLOGY, the science of disease and control and more recently GENETICS, the
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