Herbal Medicine
Edward Worth (1676–1733), was fascinated by herbals, both from a medicinal and botanical perspective. His outstanding collection of herbals is the subject of a section in our exhibition on ‘Botany at the Edward Worth Library’, which explores not only his many herbals but also his floras and works on the classification of plants. It is clear that he was not only interested in botany for its own sake but also because of its medicinal applications.
Adam Lonicer, Naturalis historiae opus novum (Frankfurt, 1551), fol. 85r: Aquilegia.
Worth owned a number of important editions of works by ancient authors such as the fourth-century BC author Theophratus, and the first century AD author Dioscorides Pedanius, of Anazarbos, writers whose seminal texts were brought to a much wider audience due to the efforts of Renaissance humanists and the printing press in the later fifteenth century.[1] He owned a bi-lingual edition of, Theophrastus’ De historia plantarum libri decem, Graecè & Latinè, printed at Amsterdam in 1644, and he acquired both a 1499 Aldine edition in Greek of Dioscorides’ Pedakiou Dioskoridou … peri hules iatrikēs logoi hex. Eti peri iobolon … Nikandrou tou kolophoniou … Theriaka. meta scholion. Tou autou alexipharmaka (Venice, 1499), and a 1549 edition in Latin: De medicinali materia libri sex I. Ruellio … interprete. Singulis cum stirpium, tum animantium historiis, ad naturae aemulationem expressis imaginibus … ; Accesserunt priori editioni V. Cordi … ; annotationes … in Dioscoridis de medica materia libros. E. Cordi … iudicium de herbis & simplicibus medicinae … ; Herbarum nomenclaturae … aut. C. Gesnero … cum indice … copiosissimo … (Frankfurt, 1549). As Palmer states, Dioscorides’ De materia medica was to prove especially influential in the early modern period, not least due to its practical lay out, which gave simple descriptions of each plant and its medicinal use.[2] It was, however, a tantalizing work, for not every plant was identifiable and, due to a combination of mistranslation and mistakes in the original text, it needed revision – a project which, as Palmer notes, would save lives by ensuring that patients were given the correct herbal medicine.[3] Worth owned an edition of one of the most important sixteenth-century Italian commentaries on Dioscorides: the immensely influential Opera quæ extant omnia: hoc est, Commentarij in VI. libros Pedacij Dioscoridis Anazarbei de medica materia (Basle, 1598). This was one of many editions of the work by the dominant Italian botanist (and physician) Pietro Andrea Mattioli (1501–77). The text proved to be a major publishing success with a host of editions and extensive print runs.[4]
The motherload of Worth’s herbals date to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and he owned some of the most famous herbals of all time. The mid sixteenth-century is justifiably known as the ‘age of the herbal’ and certainly herbals such as Worth’s herbals by famous German botanists such as Otto Brunfels (c. 1489–1534), Leonhard Fuchs (1501–66), and this coloured herbal by Adam Lonicer (1528–86), were among his prized items. To these he added De raris et admirandis herbis (Zurich, 1555) of the Swiss physician Konrad Gesner (1516–65); Plantarum seu stirpium historia (Antwerp, 1576) of the Flemish physician Matthias de L’Obel (1538–1616); and, last but not least of his sixteenth-century authors, the Stirpium historiae pemptades sex, sive libri XXX (Antwerp, 1616) of the Flemist botanist and physician, Rembert Dodoens (1517–85).
John Parkinson, Theatrum botanicum: The theater of plants (London, 1640), title page.
Worth likewise owned many famous seventeenth-century herbals, such as Rariorum plantarum historia (Antwerp, 1601) of Charles de l’Écluse (Carolus Clusius, 1526–1609); Historia plantarum universalis (Yverdon, 1650) of Johann Bauhin (1541–1613); as well as two massive English herbals: his 1633 edition of the immensely popular The herball or Generall historie of plantes (London, 1633) by the herbalist John Gerard (c. 1545–1612); and this work, Theatrum botanicum: The theater of plants (London, 1640), by the apothecary and herbalist John Parkinson (1566/7–1650). All of these texts were extensive but few aimed to bring together all known information about plants in the manner Parkinson sought to do. He was well-placed to produce such a herbal for he had excellent connections with the community of apothecaries (where he had trained for eight years), and subsequently joined the newly-founded Society of Apothecaries in 1617. He was likewise clearly valued by the Royal College of Physicians for he was one of the five apothecaries consulted by them on the publication of the first Pharmacopoeia Londinensis, which appeared in 1618, and which Worth owned in three later editions.[5]
The title of John Parkinson’s enormous text (over 1,700 pages), points to the problem faced by apothecaries and, for that matter, physicians, interested in tabulating herbal medicine: the exponential growth of knowledge about plants over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries meant that the corpus of information had simply become too large. The noted botanist John Ray (1627–1705), rightly called Parkinson’s Theatrum botanicum ‘the most full and comprehensive book of that subject extant’ but its encyclopaedic nature made it awkward to use.[6] A herbal such as Parkinson’s or John Gerard’s could (and did) act as a source book for physicians, apothecaries and, indeed, in the home, but they were unwieldy works, and by the early eighteenth century new smaller texts advocating herbal medicine were being produced – and being bought by Worth.
John Pechey, The compleat herbal of physical plants. Containing all such English and foreign herbs, shrubs and trees, as are used in physick and surgery. And to the Vertues that are now in use, is added one Receipt or more, of some Learned Physician. The Doses or Quantities of such as are prescribed by the London–Physicians, and others, are proportioned … (London, 1707), title page.
This herbal by John Pechey (bap. 1654, d. 1718), is one such and the difference between it and Parkinson’s Theatrum botanicum is immediately apparent for not only it is much smaller than Theatrum botanicum, unlike either Parkinson’s herbal (or Gerard’s or for that matter any of the aforementioned herbals), Pechey provided his readers with an un-illustrated text. This significantly kept costs down and it was not the only economic measure he employed for though the title of his work might claim to be a ‘Compleat Herbal’ (and a lot more besides), in format it was much smaller (an octavo). This not only saved on paper (which meant it would be cheaper than the larger folios of Gerard and Parkinson), but crucially, it might be more easily held in the hand than their enormous herbals. Indeed, Pechey confidently asserted that, while his herbal might not contain much new material, ‘there will be found more Practice in it, than in any English Herbal yet published’.[7]
Unlike Parkinson, Pechey was a trained physician, having received his licentiate in 1684, and he was always keen to promote the practice of physicians.[8] As the above title page demonstrates, he was eager to display his credentials, ‘JOHN PECHEY, of the College of Physicians in London’. Worth’s copy of Pechey’s The Compleat Herbal, was the second edition, for the work had first appeared in 1694. It, and many others of Pechey’s texts, proved very popular and Worth owned a number of them. Pechey is best known for his English translations of the Latin works of Thomas Sydenham (bap. 1624, d. 1689), one of the best known English physicians of the seventeenth century, for he was keen to promote what he called Sydenham’s ‘practical medicine’.[9]
Pechey’s The Compleat Herbal was designed to be of use not only to his fellow physicians but also to the ‘Apothecaries and Druggists’ and, for that matter, to anybody interested in simple and compound medicine – a medical market which was very broad indeed and encompassed women healers in the home. In his preface he explained that he was conscious that not all practitioners of medicine understood foreign languages, and that he wanted to introduce them to new advances.[10] It is clear that Pechey specifically designed his book for a broad audience for he points to the utility of his text for those who, by necessity, had to self-medicate due to the scarcity of physicians:
‘In the First Part of the following Herbal, I have only describ’d such Plants as grow in England, and are not commonly known; for I thought it needless to trouble the Reader with the Description of those that every Woman knows, or keeps in her Garden. And, because this Treatise is design’d for general Use, and, I hope, may be serviceable to Families in the Country, that are far distant from Physicians, I have added an Explanatory Table, containing the Terms of Arts, and the Explication of them’.[11]
Explicit here is Pechey’s understanding that many of his readers would be women administering medicine in the home. Leong notes that ‘herbals were one of the main sources of information for home-based medical practices and it appears that herbals were fairly common reading matter for early modern women’.[12] In her study of the reading habits of two such female readers, Elizabeth Freke (1642–1714) and Margaret Boscawen (d. 1688), the emphasis was on Gerard’s herbal and Nicholas Culpeper’s works, but Freke, who outlived Boscawen, also read Pechey’s The Compleat Herbal in its 1694 London edition. Such self-medication in the home was, in Pechey’s view, a necessary evil but an evil nonetheless, for he advised his readers that it was ‘very hazardous, in many Cases, to administer Physick without the Advice of a Physician’.[13] Despite that plea for his profession, Pechey was a realist and so did his best to aid his readers by helpfully including indices in both Latin and English, as well as an ‘Explanatory Table’ which acted as a glossary.[14] The entire text, which focused on English plants (i.e. plants that might be found locally), was laid out in alphabetical order, describing each plant and its use.
Certainly Pechey aimed to produce a practical manual and included such vital information as when to gather herbs:
‘But I suppose, in general ‘tis best to gather them when they are full of Juice that is well concocted, and before the Fibres grow woody. Chuse a clear Day; and do not gather them till the Dew is gone off. Flowers are best gather’d when they are full blown: Seeds, when they are ripe and begin to dry. Fruits should not be gather’d til Spring, just before they begin to spring. ‘Tis best to dry Herbs in the Sun, though Physicians generally order that they should be dried in the Shade’.[15]
Pechey hoped that by providing ‘Directions for making Compound-Waters, Syrups Simple and Compound; Electuaries, Pills, Powders, and other sorts of Medicine’ he might aid his reader in their search for health.[16] Like so many other works by him it was not based on his own research – a fact he acknowledged in his preface – but he considered that his role was not so much to innovate but to popularise, so that as many people as possible might ‘partake of those Improvements that are made abroad, or conceal’d at home, in a Language to them unknown’.[17]
Text: Dr Elizabethanne Boran, Librarian of the Edward Worth Library, Dublin.
Sources
Burnby, Juanita, ‘Parkinson, John (1566/7–1650), apothecary and herbalist’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB).
Cook, Harold J., ‘Pechey, John (bap. 1654, d. 1718), physician’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB).
Cook, Harold J., ‘Sydenham, Thomas (bap. 1624, d. 1689), physician’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB).
Hatfield, Vivienne Gabrielle, ‘Domestic Medicine in Eighteenth-Century Scotland’, Ph.D, University of Edinburgh, 1980.
Leong, Elaine, ‘‘Herbals she peruseth’: reading medicine in early modern England’, Renaissance Studies, 28. No. 4 (2014), 556–78.
Palmer, Richard, ‘Medical botany in northern Italy in the Renaissance’, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 78 (1985), 149–57.
Pechey, John, The compleat herbal of physical plants. Containing all such English and foreign herbs, shrubs and trees, as are used in physick and surgery. And to the Vertues that are now in use, is added one Receipt or more, of some Learned Physician. The Doses or Quantities of such as are prescribed by the London-Physicians, and others, are proportioned … (London, 1707).
[1] Palmer, Richard, ‘Medical botany in northern Italy in the Renaissance’, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 78 (1985), 150.
[2] Ibid., 151.
[3] Ibid., 151.
[4] Ibid., 152.
[5] Burnby, Juanita, ‘Parkinson, John (1566/7–1650), apothecary and herbalist’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB).
[6] Raven, C.E., English naturalists from Neckham to Ray: a study of the making of the modern world (Cambridge, 1968), p. 272, cited in Burnby, Juanita, ‘Parkinson, John (1566/7–1650), apothecary and herbalist’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB).
[7] Pechey, John, The compleat herbal of physical plants. Containing all such English and foreign herbs, shrubs and trees, as are used in physick and surgery. And to the Vertues that are now in use, is added one Receipt or more, of some Learned Physician. The Doses or Quantities of such as are prescribed by the London-Physicians, and others, are proportioned … (London, 1707), Sig. A3r.
[8] Cook, Harold J., ‘Pechey, John (bap. 1654, d. 1718), physician’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB).
[9] Cook, Harold J., ‘Sydenham, Thomas (bap. 1624, d. 1689), physician’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB).
[10] Pechey, The compleat herbal of physical plants, Sig. A2r-v.
[11] Ibid., Sig. A3r.
[12] Leong, Elaine, ‘‘Herbals she peruseth’: reading medicine in early modern England’, Renaissance Studies, 28. No. 4 (2014), 561.
[13] Pechey, The compleat herbal of physical plants, Sig. A3r.
[14] Ibid., Sigs. A4r-v.
[15] Ibid., Sig. A3v.
[16] Ibid., title page.
[17] Ibid., Sig. A2v.