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  • A woman being stabbed while the blood pouring from her wounds is drunk by a group of men; representing Britannia's resources being drained by politicians. Engraving, 1768.
  • Three men smoking and drinking in a tavern: one man, when drunk, tends to abuse Irish people; the second, who is Irish, tends to attack anyone abusing Irish people; and the third man looks on. Coloured lithograph.
  • On the stage of the Drury Lane Theatre, Comedy is hanged, Tragedy is stabbed, and Sheridan the playwright lies dead drunk as the theatre is given over to animal entertainments. Coloured etching by S. De Wilde, 1808.
  • Lot, drunk, rests back into the arms of one of his daughters; the other one pours him more wine; in the background his wife watches Sodom burn. Engraving by W. Kent after D. Zampieri, il Domenichino, 1630.
  • Three men smoking and drinking in a tavern: one man, when drunk, tends to abuse Irish people; the second, who is Irish, tends to attack anyone abusing Irish people; and the third man looks on. Coloured lithograph.
  • A condom on top of a bottle representing the risk of having sex when drunk; advertisement of the High Equals High Risk Campaign by AIDS: A Positive Co-ordinated Community Response Society of Jasper. Colour lithograph by Daniel Riitano, 1993.
  • English commerce is shown as a cow milked by the Dutch, the horns sawn off by the Americans and its milk drunk by the French and the Spanish, while an Englishman wrings his hands at this distressing sight. Etching, ca. 1780.
  • Coreopsis tinctoria Nutt. Asteraceae. Plains coreopsis. Golden tickseed. Distribution: North America. Used by Cherokee as an infusion for diarrhoea. Drunk by the Lakota as a tea. Zuni women drink infusion of plant, minus roots, if they wish to have female babies
  • Celebrations of Wellington's victory at the battle of Salamanca: Sir Francis Burdett's house is attacked, a funeral procession of Whigs passes by, and a toast is drunk to Wellington by England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Coloured etching by W.H. Brooke, 1812.
  • Trillium sessile L. Trilliaceae Distribution: North America. Various Trilliums were used by Native Americans to stop haematuria, haematemesis, menorrhagia, and to heal ulcers (Milspaugh, 1974). Roots were eaten to treat stiff muscles, and tea from the plant drunk and powdered plant put on joints for rheumatism by the Iroquois (Lewis & Elvin-Lewis, 2003). Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Cedronella canariensis (L.)Webb & Berthel. Basionym Dracocephalum canariense. Lamiaceae. Canary balm, Balm-of-Gilead, Canary Island tea. It smells slightly resinous of cedar, hence the diminutive name Cedronella. Perennial herb. Distribution: Canary Islands. True Balm-of-Gilead is the sap of the poplar, Populus candicans. It was drunk as a tea, and the aroma was believed to relieve colds. No medicinal use. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Polemonium caeruleum L. Polemoniaceae Jacob's ladder, Greek Valerian. Hardy perennial. Distribution: Temperate Europe. Dioscorides in 70 AD (Beck, 2005), and Lyte (1578) recommended it drunk in wine, for malignant ulcers, dysentery, difficulty in micturition, hip disease. The root was worn round the neck to protect against scorpions, and stopped toothache if chewed. Called Valerian Graeca by Dodoens (1551) and Parkinson (1640), Valeriana peregrina Belgarum by Lobel (1576). Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Nepal; yak transport in the Khumbu, 1986. Sherpas drive a pair of heavily laden yaks along a narrow path on the long climb from Lukla (altitude 2827 metres) to Namche Bazar (3446 metres), the main town in the Khumbu region. The yak is the beast of burden in the Khumbu as well as providing wool, milk, cheese and butter. Yak butter is burned in votive lamps and drunk in tea. The animals command a high price and are carefully nurtured by their owners.
  • Acanthus spinosus L. Acanthaceae. Bears breeches. Distribution: Southern Europe to Western Turkey. Herbaceous perennial flowering plant. Named for spiny leaves. Dioscorides recommended the roots applied for inflammation and spasms, and -when drunk- to promote urine, check diarrhoea, and for phthysis, ruptures and convulsions. The leaves are the model for those at the top of Corinthian columns. Tetraglycosides isolated from the plant show cytotoxicity in sea urchin eggs and crown gall tumour on potato disks. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Ruscus aculeatus L. Ruscaceae Butchers Broom., Box holly, Knee Holly, Jew’s myrtle. Distribution: Mediterranean to Britain. Aculeatus means 'prickly' which describes the plant well. Dioscorides in 70 AD (Gunther, 1959) says of this plant ‘... ye leaves and berries drunk in wine have ye force to move urine, expel the menstrua, and to break ye stones in ye bladder ...’ and adds also ‘ ... it cures also ye Icterus and ye strangurie and ye headache.' Its use did not change for a millennium and a half
  • Acinos alpinus (L.) Moench. Lamiaceae. Rock thyme. Small herbaceous perennial. Distribution: C. and S. Europe. This is Mountain wild Basill, Clinopodium alpinum, of Parkinson (1640), the Teucrium Alpinum and Clinopodium Alpinum hirsutum of Bauhin. Then as now, when it has the synonyms Thymus alpinus, Satureja alpina and Calamintha alpina, its nomenclature has been confused. It is unlikely to be the Acinos or Clinopodium of Theophrastus or Disocorides. Dioscorides gives opposing medicinal uses to the plants he knows by these two names, and Parkinson (1640) makes no judgement as to its uses. Reportedly drunk as a tea in Greece, but evidence for it being used historically for fevers is lacking. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Cynara cardunculus L. Asteraceae. Cardoon, Globe Artichoke, Artechokes, Scolymos cinara, Cynara, Cinara. Distribution: Southern Europe and North Africa. Lyte (1576) writes that Dodoens (1552) could find no medical use for them and Galen (c.200 AD) said they were indigestible unless cooked. However, he relates that other authors recommend that if the flower heads are soaked in strong wine, they 'provoke urine and stir up lust in the body.' More prosaically, the roots boiled in wine and drunk it cause the urine to be 'stinking' and so cures smelly armpits. He adds that it strengthens the stomach so causing women to conceive Male children. He goes on to say that the young shoots boiled in broth also stir up lust in men and women, and more besides. Lyte (1576) was translating, I think with elaborations, from the chapter on Scolymos cinara, Artichaut, in Dodoen's Croydeboeck (1552) as L'Ecluse's French translation, Dodoens Histoire des Plantes (1575) does not mention these latter uses, but Dodoen's own Latin translation, the Pemptades (1583), and Gerard's Herbal (1633) both do so. It is useful in understanding the history of these translations to realise that Gerard uses, almost verbatim, the translation of the 'smelly armpit' paragraph from Lyte. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Cynara cardunculus L. Asteraceae. Cardoon, Globe Artichoke, Artechokes, Scolymos cinara, Cynara, Cinara. Distribution: Southern Europe and North Africa. Lyte (1576) writes that Dodoens (1552) could find no medical use for them and Galen (c.200 AD) said they were indigestible unless cooked. However he relates that other authors recommend that if the flower heads are soaked in strong wine, they 'provoke urine and stir up lust in the body.' More prosaically, the roots boiled in wine and drunk it cause the urine to be 'stinking' and so cures smelly armpits. He adds that it strengthens the stomach so causing women to conceive Male children. He goes on to say that the young shoots boiled in broth also stir up lust in men and women, and more besides. Lyte (1576) was translating, I think with elaborations, from the chapter on Scolymos cinara, Artichaut, in Dodoen's Croydeboeck (1552) as L'Ecluse's French translation (1575) does not mention these latter uses, but Dodoen's own Latin translation, the Pemptades(1583), and Gerard's (1633) both do so. It is useful in understanding the history of these translations to realise that Gerard uses, almost verbatim, the translation of the 'smelly armpit' paragraph from Lyte. 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.
  • 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.
  • A skull in a drinking glass at the steering wheel of a motor vehicle, representing the fatal effects of drunken driving. Colour lithograph.
  • A skull in a drinking glass at the steering wheel of a motor vehicle, representing the fatal effects of drunken driving. Colour lithograph.
  • A traffic signal that is bent and broken, with a vodka bottle jammed in its stem; representing vodka as a cause of driving accidents. Colour lithograph, 19--.
  • A bottle of alcoholic drink with a red flag attached to it; advertising the danger of driving after drinking. Colour lithograph, 193-.
  • A vodka bottle on its side driven like a sports car; representing people who drink and drive as criminals. Colour lithograph by Z. Waszewski, 1961.
  • A profile of a man interpreted by Lavater to be indolent, idle, and a drunkard. Drawing, c. 1789.
  • The dance of death: the sot. Coloured aquatint after T. Rowlandson, 1816.
  • A man walking with the posture of a drunkard. Drawing with wash, c. 1789.
  • Marriage a la mode, after William Hogarth.
  • Two men, possibly students, carrying home a drunken doctor laid out on a door, verse below. Lithograph.