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  • Mandrake roots in human form; the mandrake plant; ginseng. Engraving.
  • Mandrake: male.
  • Mandragora officinarum (Mandrake)
  • Mandragora officinarum (Mandrake)
  • Mandragora officinarum (Mandrake)
  • Mandragora officinarum (Mandrake)
  • Mandragora officinarum (Mandrake)
  • Podophyllum peltatum (American mandrake)
  • Podophyllum hexandrum (Indian mandrake)
  • Podophyllum peltatum (May apple or American mandrake)
  • Three people plucking mandrake. Gouache by Robert Bateman, 1870.
  • Three people plucking mandrake. Gouache by Robert Bateman, 1870.
  • Three people plucking mandrake. Gouache by Robert Bateman, 1870.
  • Three people plucking mandrake. Gouache by Robert Bateman, 1870.
  • Podophyllum peltatum (American mandrake). Also known as 'May apple'.
  • Podophyllum peltatum (American mandrake). Also known as 'May apple'.
  • Podophyllum peltatum (American mandrake). Also known as 'May apple'.
  • Podophyllum peltatum (American mandrake). Also known as 'May apple'.
  • Mandrake roots in the form of human figures, both naked and clothed; the mandrake plant itself (Mandragora officinarum L.); and a root of ginseng (Panax quinquefolius L.). Engraving.
  • Three mother-goddesses or fates (above); three mandrake charms (below). Engraving.
  • A cudweed plant (Gnaphalium species), mandrake plant (Mandragora officinarum) and breadfruit tree (Artocarpus atilis). Coloured engraving, c. 1827.
  • Mandrake (Mandragora officinarum L.): flowering plant with separate fruit, seed and sectioned fruit. Coloured etching by M. Bouchard, 1772.
  • A witch in the moonlight, opening her hand to a mandrake plant dressed in a white veil. Drawing by or after H. Fuseli.
  • A witch in the moonlight, opening her hand to a mandrake plant dressed in a white veil. Drawing by or after H. Fuseli.
  • This month (April) you should abstain from hemlock, henbane, deadly mandrake, arsenic sublimate, etc., for most physicians agree that all these plants are more or less unwholesome ...
  • Paeonia officinalis L. Paeoniaceae, European Peony, Distribution: Europe. The peony commemorates Paeon, physician to the Gods of ancient Greece (Homer’s Iliad v. 401 and 899, circa 800 BC). Paeon, came to be associated as being Apollo, Greek god of healing, poetry, the sun and much else, and father of Aesculapius/Asclepias. Theophrastus (circa 300 BC), repeated by Pliny, wrote that if a woodpecker saw one collecting peony seed during the day, it would peck out one’s eyes, and (like mandrake) the roots had to be pulled up at night by tying them to the tail of a dog, and one’s ‘fundament might fall out’ [anal prolapse] if one cut the roots with a knife. Theophrastus commented ‘all this, however, I take to be so much fiction, most frivolously invented to puff up their supposed marvellous properties’. Dioscorides (70 AD, tr. Beck, 2003) wrote that 15 of its black seeds, drunk with wine, were good for nightmares, uterine suffocation and uterine pains. Officinalis indicates it was used in the offices, ie the clinics, of the monks in the medieval era. The roots, hung round the neck, were regarded as a cure for epilepsy for nearly two thousand years, and while Galen would have used P. officinalis, Parkinson (1640) recommends the male peony (P. mascula) for this. He also recommends drinking a decoction of the roots. Elizabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbal (1737), published by the College of Physicians, explains that it was used to cure febrile fits in children, associated with teething. Although she does not mention it, these stop whatever one does. Parkinson also reports that the seeds are used for snake bite, uterine bleeding, people who have lost the power of speech, nightmares and melancholy. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Paeonia officinalis L. Paeoniaceae, European Peony, Distribution: Europe. The peony commemorates Paeon, physician to the Gods of ancient Greece (Homer’s Iliad v. 401 and 899, circa 800 BC). Paeon, came to be associated as being Apollo, Greek god of healing, poetry, the sun and much else, and father of Aesculapius/Asclepias. Theophrastus (circa 300 BC), repeated by Pliny, wrote that if a woodpecker saw one collecting peony seed during the day, it would peck out one’s eyes, and (like mandrake) the roots had to be pulled up at night by tying them to the tail of a dog, and one’s ‘fundament might fall out’ [anal prolapse] if one cut the roots with a knife. Theophrastus commented ‘all this, however, I take to be so much fiction, most frivolously invented to puff up their supposed marvellous properties’. Dioscorides (70 AD, tr. Beck, 2003) wrote that 15 of its black seeds, drunk with wine, were good for nightmares, uterine suffocation and uterine pains. Officinalis indicates it was used in the offices, ie the clinics, of the monks in the medieval era. The roots, hung round the neck, were regarded as a cure for epilepsy for nearly two thousand years, and while Galen would have used P. officinalis, Parkinson (1640) recommends the male peony (P. mascula) for this. He also recommends drinking a decoction of the roots. Elizabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbal (1737), published by the College of Physicians, explains that it was used to cure febrile fits in children, associated with teething. Although she does not mention it, these stop whatever one does. Parkinson also reports that the seeds are used for snake bite, uterine bleeding, people who have lost the power of speech, nightmares and melancholy. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Iris, Aesculapius and Flora routing death. Mezzotint by J.J. Haid, 1737, after J.W. Baumgartner.
  • Ayer's Sarsaparilla gives health and sunny hours / Dr. J.C. Ayer & Co.
  • Ayer's Sarsaparilla gives health and sunny hours / Dr. J.C. Ayer & Co.