Hunt Institute Archives Text Discovery Platform

Page transcription

[Reprinted from THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, May, 1904.]

ENGLISH HERBALS.

BY AGNES ROBERTSON, B.Sc.,
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON

IN the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there was a renewal of the
scientific spirit, as well as the more obvious revival in art and
letters of which we commonly speak as the Renaissance. Among the
most striking of the many visible fruits of this revival were numerous
herbals, in which all the plants then known were enumerated, described
and often beautifully figured. The earliest English example with
which I am acquainted is a small, black-letter, anonymous volume
published in 1525. The title is 'Here begynneth a newe mater,
the whiche sheweth and treateth of ye vertues and propeytes of herbes,
the whiche is called an Herball.' There are scarcely any descriptions
of the plants, but long and elaborate dissertations on their virtues.
Even such a commonplace weed as the plantain is credited with
considerable powers: "For heed ache take Plantayne and bynde it aboute
thy necke and ye ache shall go out of thy heed." Of rosemary we
read: "Take the flores and make powder thereof and bynde it to the
right arme in a lynen clothe, and it shall make thee lyght and mery.
Also boyle the leves in whyte wynye and washe thy face therwith,
and thou shalt have a fayre face. Also put the leves under thy heddes
heed, and thou shalt be delyvered of all evyll dremes. Also make thee
a box of the wood and smell to it, and it shall preserve thy youte."

In the following year was published one of the most famous of
the old herbals, "The Grete Herball which geveth parfyt knowledge
and understanding of all maner of herbes and there gracious vertues."
This includes in addition to plants, descriptions of a number of
substances, such as gold, silver, asphalt, starch, vinegar, butter, honey
and the lodestone! It contains delightful prescriptions for healing
all manner of ailments. For instance, Apium "is good for lunatyke
folke yf it be bounde to the pacyentes heed with a lynen clothe dyed
reed the moone beyng in cresant in the sygne of Taurus or Scorpion
in ye fyrst parte of the sygne, and he shal be hole anonie"; and as
a cure "for werynesse" we read, "To them that be wary of goynge gyve
to drink a dragme of the powdre of Bethony with warm water and an
once of orimell." The following statement gives an inkling of the
condition of plant-geography at the time: Balsam "is founde towarde
Babylon, in a field whereas VII welles or fountaynes be, and is carried
from thens"!

VOL. LXV. - 5.