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  • Lobelia cardinalis L Campanulaceae Cardinal lobelia Distribution: Americas, Colombia to south-eastern Canada. The genus was named after Matthias de L’Obel or Lobel, (1538–1616), Flemish botanist and physician to James I of England, author of the great herbal Plantarum seu Stirpium Historia (1576). Lobeline, a chemical from the plant has nicotine like actions and for a while lobeline was used to help people withdraw from smoking, but was found to be ineffective. It was introduced from Virginia to John Parkinson in England by John Newton (1580-1647) a surgeon of Colyton (aka Colliton), Devon, who travelled to Virginia. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Matthiola incana (L.)W.T.Aiton Brassicaceae Distribution: The genus name commemorates Pietro Andrea Mattioli (1500/1–77), physician and botanist, whose name is Latinised to Matthiolus.. Incana means hoary or grey, referring to the colour of the leaves. Mattioli's commentaries on the Materia Medica of Dioscorides were hugely popular. Matthiola incana was first described by Linnaeus as Cheiranthus incanus, being changed to Matthiola by William Aiton, at Kew, in 1812. It is in the cabbage family. Commercial seed packets contain a mixture of single and double forms. The latter are sterile, but selective breeding has increased the proportion of double forms from the seed of single forms to as much as 80%. ‘Ten week stocks’ are popular garden annuals, flowering in the year of sowing, whereas ‘Brompton stocks’ (another variety of M. incana) are biennials, flowering the following year. Gerard (1633), called them Stocke Gillofloure or Leucoium, and notes the white and purple forms, singles and doubles. About their medicinal value he writes ‘not used in Physicke except among certain Empiricks and Quacksalvers, about love and lust matters, which for modestie I omit’. The thought of a member of the cabbage family being an aphrodisiac might encourage the gullible to take more seriously the government’s plea to eat five portions of vegetable/fruit per day. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • M0006686: Portrait of Jacob Bobart (1599-1680)
  • M0006708: Portrait of Thomas Dowland (active 1790)
  • M0006708: Portrait of Thomas Dowland (active 1790)
  • M0006708: Portrait of Thomas Dowland (active 1790)
  • M0006708: Portrait of Thomas Dowland (active 1790)
  • M0006708: Portrait of Thomas Dowland (active 1790)
  • M0006708: Portrait of Thomas Dowland (active 1790)
  • M0006708: Portrait of Thomas Dowland (active 1790)
  • M0006708: Portrait of Thomas Dowland (active 1790)
  • M0002823: Portrait of William Woodville (1752-1805)
  • Two ladies indoors contemplate a house plant which is loosing its foliage. Mezzotint.
  • Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker in the Rhododendron area of the Himalaya. Mezzotint by W. Walker, after F. Stone, 1854.
  • Nicholas Joseph, Freiherr von Jacquin, and his brother Joseph Franz. Line engraving by Mathieu, 1802, after a wax medallion by L. Posch.
  • Scorpion and snake fighting, Anglo-Saxon. circa 1050
  • François Nicolas Marquet. Line engraving by C.F. Nicole, 1763.
  • Cione di Lapo Pollini. Line engraving.
  • Friedrich Ehrhart. Aquatint silhouette.
  • A man holding flowers. Oil painting.
  • Exhibition: Medicine under three Queens; Elizabeth, Anne and Victoria.
  • M0006617: Portrait of Hermann Boerhaave (1668-1738)
  • M0006617: Portrait of Hermann Boerhaave (1668-1738)
  • Charles de l'Écluse or Carolus Clusius (1526 – 1609)
  • Charles de l'Écluse or Carolus Clusius (1526 – 1609)
  • Robert Brown. Photograph by Maull & Polyblank.
  • Baron Albrecht von Haller. Line engraving.
  • Portrait of Carl Linnaeus (1707 – 1778),
  • Colin Milne, with a view of Greenwich Hospital. Stipple engraving by Holl, 1804, after J. Russell, and by Newton.
  • Colin Milne, with a view of Greenwich Hospital. Stipple engraving by Holl, 1804, after J. Russell, and by Newton.