GUEST POST FROM THE JOHN MARTIN RARE BOOK ROOM
Book : Culpeper’s Complete Herbal
Author : Nicholas Culpeper
Year : 1814
I’m a sure that somewhere through the years we here at the John Martin Rare Book Room MUST have posted something about Culpeper’s herbals! Especially since we probably have about 10 books by Culpeper in our collection, ranging from beautifully illustrated herbals such as this one, to Pharmacopoeia Londinensis, to “The practice of physick, in seventeen several books : wherein is plainly set forth, the nature, cause, differences, and several sorts of signs, together with the cure of all diseases in the body...” So even if we have posted about the herbals in the past I’ve been spending some of these summer days out in the woods and wild, and seeing all of the beautiful blooming flowers makes me want to share these lovely pages with you again. Though I haven’t been able to carry around Culpeper’s herbal from 1698, 1741, 1789, 1807, 1814, 1831, OR 1853 with me while wandering through the wild, I do love leafing through these herbals in the rare book room and seeing plants I recognize and looking up their potential medical benefits.
This is another book that we pull ALL the TIME for classes and we’d love to pull it off the shelf for you if you ever want to come learn about the medicinal benefits of foxglove or lavender as told by Culpeper.
IOWA DIGITAL LIBRARY
