Page 12 - Pharmacy History 29 July 2006

Culpeper’s Herbal
by Miriam Miller
The seventeenth century struggle to bring medicine to the people.
First published in 1652 with the title The English Physitian, the book is still in print and over 100 separate editions have been produced during the past 350 years.
The title Culpeper’s Herbal was wished upon the book by later editors and is the one by which it is now generally known. The Herbal, therefore, bids fair to be the longest- surviving secular text printed in English, its nearest rival being Izaak Walton’s Compleat Angler which was first published in the following year, 1653.
Nicholas Culpeper
Line engraving, 1652. Wellcome Library
In spite of his book’s popularity, the author Nicholas Culpeper is both a shadowy and controversial figure. Biographical information on him is meagre and subsequent comments on him and his published works by what might be described as orthodox
medical opinion have been critical in the extreme. He has been described as a quack and ‘that incorrigible charlatan’. This is hardly fair, Culpeper, after four years at Cambridge, had spent six years as an apprentice apothecary between 1634 and 1640 and for the last 14 years of his life, he conducted what must have been a
successful practice next to the Red Lion in Spitalfields, just outside the City of London. He never claimed, however, to be a physician, describing himself on the title-pages of his books as ‘Nich Culpeper, Gent. Student in Physick and Astrologie’.
By 1652, he was already an established author and, in the prefatory matter to this, the first edition, he lists over 40 authorities whose works he has studied before publishing his book. These include classical authors such as Galen and Dioscorides as well as near-contemporaries, Gerrard and Parkinson. The list is no mere window- dressing exercise, because he continually refers to
these authors throughout the volume, comparing and contrasting their opinions and recommendations.
Culpeper, himself, however, possessed a fine gift for invective, which he used to effect when criticising a group he regarded as his arch-enemy, namely the Fellows of the College of Physicians. Culpeper’s antagonism
was rooted in his disgust at the high fees the Fellows demanded of patients for consultation.
He had published his own translation into English of the College’s Latin Pharmacopoeia Londinensis, in 1649 with the express intention of making the text available to the laity.
However, whilst the knowledge of what in the 17th century was called ‘physick’ may thus have been made available in print, the bulk of the ingredients needed to make up the medicines listed in the Pharmacopoeia could be obtained only from an apothecary and were, therefore, expensive. Herbs, on the other hand, were grown in gardens for culinary purposes, could be purchased at street markets or gathered wild.
The idea, therefore, of publishing a small, portable book, cheap in itself and offering information about cheap and readily available ingredients must have occurred to Culpeper and his printer, Peter Cole, hence the appearance of The English physitian in 1652.
As with most herbals, The English physitian offers an alphabetical list of herbs together with recommendations for their use.
12 ■ Pharmacy History Australia
volume 3 ■ no 29 ■ JuLY 2006