Two hundred years ago a group of physicians laid the foundations of botany with their study of plants for medicinal purposes. Linnaeus of Sweden devised the binomial classification of plants, which is still in use today. Boerhaave of Leyden revitalized bedside teaching and was a major influence in the English-speaking medical schools. Sloane founded the still-existing Physic Garden in London; his natural history collection formed the foundation of the British Museum. Withering prepared digitalis from the purple foxglove and wrote a standard work on the cultivation of vegetables. The gardenia and poinsettia are named after New World physician-botanists Alexander Garden and Joel Poinsett. Swedish physicians Sparrman and Thunberg, pupils of Linnaeus, were the major and original describers of the Cape flora. Atherstone of Grahamstown--the first doctor to use a general anaesthetic (ether) outside America and Europe--is a 19th century example of the naturalist physician as an ardent botanist; he was also a geologist and identified the first diamond found in South Africa.
