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  • Nineteen scenes depicting popular disillusionment with doctors and medicine. Coloured wood engraving by Henriot, ca. 1900.
  • Nineteen scenes depicting popular disillusionment with doctors and medicine. Coloured wood engraving by Henriot, ca. 1900.
  • Nineteen scenes depicting popular disillusionment with doctors and medicine. Coloured wood engraving by Henriot, ca. 1900.
  • Nineteen scenes depicting popular disillusionment with doctors and medicine. Coloured wood engraving by Henriot, ca. 1900.
  • Zantedeschia aethiopica (L)Spreng. Calla lily, Arum lily. Half hardy annual. Distribution: South Africa. The genus name commemorates Giovanni Zantedeschi (1773-1846) an Italian physician and botanist. Born in Molina he studied medicine in Verona and Padua. He corresponded with the German botanist, Kurt Sprengel, who named the genus Zantedeschia in his honour in 1826, separating it from Calla, where, as C. aethiopica, it had been previously described by Linnaeus. He had broad interests, including the effect of different parts of the spectrum of light on plant growth, reporting in 1843, that red, orange and yellow light are heliotropically inactive. The botanic museum in Molina is dedicated to his memory. Aethiopica, merely means 'African'. The leaves are used as a warm poultice for headaches in ‘muthi’ medicine. It has become an invasive weed in parts of Australia. It was introduced, as a greenhouse plant, to Europe in the mid-17th century, where the long lasting flowers are popular in flower arranging and for weddings and funerals – a curious combination (Oakeley, 2012). Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Valeriana officinalis L. Valerianaceae Valerianus, Phu, Nardus sylvestris, Setwal. Distribution: Europe. Popular herbalism attributes sedation to Valerian, but this is not mentioned by Coles (1657) or Gerard (1633) or Lobel (1576) or Lyte (1578) or Dioscorides (ex Gunther, 1959) or Fuchs (1553), where he quotes Pliny, Dioscorides and Galen, or Parkinson (1640), or Pomet (1712). The English translation of Tournefort (1719-1730) covers a whole page of the uses of all the different valerians, but never mentions sedation or treating anxiety. Quincy (1718) does not mention it. Because it was used in epilepsy, for which Woodville (1792) says it was useless, Haller, in his Historia stirpium indegenarum Helvetae inchoatae (1768) advocates it for those with irritability of the nervous system, as does Thomson's London Dispensatory (1811) although he lists it as an 'antispasmodic and stimulant' and for inducing menstruation. Lindley (1838) notes (as many did) that the roots smell terrible and that this makes cats excited, and in man, in large doses, induce 'scintillations, agitation and even convulsions' so used in asthenic fever, epilepsy, chorea, hysteria and as an antihelminthic.' Fluckiger & Hanbury (1879) give a wonderful account of the history of its names, but give its use as 'stimulant and antispasmodic' as do Barton & Castle (1877). but by 1936 (Martindale's Extra Pharmacopoeia) its only use was 'Given in hysterical and neurotic conditions as a sedative. Its action has been attributed to its unpleasant smell'. The European Medicines Agency (2006) approves its use as a traditional herbal medicine for mild anxiety and sleeplessness for up to 4 weeks. Despite what is written continuously about its use in ancient Greece and Rome, the only reason for its use has been because it was thought, for a brief while, to be good for epilepsy and therefore might deal with persons of a nervous disposition because of its foul smell. It has been suggested that even its Greek name, 'Phu' came from the expression of disgust which is made when one sniffs an unpleasant odour. For 1,800 years, before the last century, no-one had thought it sedative. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Abelia x grandiflora R.Br. Caprifoliaceae. Distribution (A. chinensis R.Br. × A. uniflora R.Br.). Mexico, Himalayas to Eastern Asia. Ornamental flowering shrub. The name celebrates the short life of Dr Clarke Abel FRS (1789-1826), one of the first European botanists to collect in China, which he did when attached as physician to the Canton embassy in 1816-17. It has no medicinal uses but is a popular ornamental shrub in the honeysuckle family because it attracts butterflies and has a long flowering period. From June to October it produces a profusion of small, fragrant, pink-flushed, white flowers on long, arching branches. 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.
  • Primitive physick: or, an easy and natural method of curing most diseases / By John Wesley.
  • Domestic medicine; or, A treatise on the prevention and cure of diseases by regimen and simple medicine : With appendix containing a dispensatory. For the use of private practitioners / by William Buchan.
  • Domestic medicine; or, the family physician; being an attempt to render the medical art more generally useful, by shewing people what is in their own power both with respect to the prevention and cure of diseases. Chiefly calculated to recommend a proper attention to regimen and simple medicines / [William Buchan].
  • Domestic medicine; or, the family physician; being an attempt to render the medical art more generally useful, by shewing people what is in their own power both with respect to the prevention and cure of diseases. Chiefly calculated to recommend a proper attention to regimen and simple medicines / [William Buchan].
  • Aristotle's compleat master-piece. In three parts : Displaying the secrets of nature in the generation of man, regularly digested into chapters and sections ... To which is added A treasure of health; or, the family physician ... / [Aristotle].
  • Medical extracts: on the nature of health, with practical observations: and the laws of the nervous and fibrous systems / By a friend to improvements [R.J. Thornton].
  • The Queens closet opened. Incomparable secrets in physick, chirurgery, preserving, candying, and cookery ; as they were presented to the Queen by the most experienced persons of our times ... / Transcribed from the true copies of Her Majesties own receipt-books, by W.M. one of her late servants.
  • The Queens closet opened. Incomparable secrets in physick, chirurgery, preserving, candying, and cookery ; as they were presented to the Queen by the most experienced persons of our times ... / Transcribed from the true copies of Her Majesties own receipt-books, by W.M. one of her late servants.
  • Medical extracts: on the nature of health, with practical observations: and the laws of the nervous and fibrous systems / By a friend to improvements [R.J. Thornton].
  • The Queens closet opened. Incomparable secrets in physick, chirurgery, preserving, candying, and cookery ; as they were presented to the Queen by the most experienced persons of our times ... / Transcribed from the true copies of Her Majesties own receipt-books, by W.M. one of her late servants.
  • De proprietatibus rerum. Book seventh, On medicine / translated and annotated with an introductory essay by James J. Walsh / Bartolomeus Anglicus.
  • Medical cautions : chiefly for the consideration of invalids. Containing essays on fashionable diseases, the dangerous effects of hot and crouded rooms, an enquiry into the use of medicine during a course of mineral waters, on quacks, and quack medicine, and lady doctors. And an essay on regimen, very much enlarged ... / By James Makittrick Adair.
  • Medical cautions : chiefly for the consideration of invalids. Containing essays on fashionable diseases, the dangerous effects of hot and crouded rooms, an enquiry into the use of medicine during a course of mineral waters, on quacks, and quack medicine, and lady doctors. And an essay on regimen, very much enlarged ... / By James Makittrick Adair.
  • Medical cautions : chiefly for the consideration of invalids. Containing essays on fashionable diseases, the dangerous effects of hot and crouded rooms, an enquiry into the use of medicine during a course of mineral waters, on quacks, and quack medicine, and lady doctors. And an essay on regimen, very much enlarged ... / By James Makittrick Adair.
  • Hints designed to promote beneficence, temperance, and medical science / By John Coakley Lettsom.
  • Hints designed to promote beneficence, temperance, and medical science / By John Coakley Lettsom.
  • Hints designed to promote beneficence, temperance, and medical science / By John Coakley Lettsom.
  • Hints designed to promote beneficence, temperance, and medical science / By John Coakley Lettsom.
  • Hints designed to promote beneficence, temperance, and medical science / By John Coakley Lettsom.
  • Hints designed to promote beneficence, temperance, and medical science / By John Coakley Lettsom.
  • Hints designed to promote beneficence, temperance, and medical science / By John Coakley Lettsom.
  • A family herbal: or, Familiar account of the medical properties of British and foreign plants, also their uses in dying, and the various arts, arranged according to the Linnaean system / [Robert John Thornton].