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143 results
  • Foetus and the female reproductive system with Latin lettering. Photograph, 1960/1990?, of a detail of a (medieval?) drawing.
  • Les Eyzies de Tayac, Dordogne, France: medieval water catchment and platform in rocks above the village, looking east. Photograph, ca. 1946.
  • Borago officinalis L. Boraginaceae. Borage. officinalis indicates it was used in the 'offices' - the consulting clinics - of medieval monks. Distribution: Europe. Culpeper: “... comforts the heart, cheers the spirit, drives away sadness and melancholy, they are rather laxative than binding
  • Nepal; street cleaning in Kathmandu, 1986. In the mid-1980s, Kathmandu was a mix of medieval architecture and urban sprawl. Television was a late-comer to Nepal but by the 1980s, the skyline of urban areas had become peppered with television aerials. Copying western culture and values became fashionable, and drug addiction amongst the young increased significantly during the decade.
  • The components of an astrolabe (a medieval instrument, now replaced by the sextant, that was once used to determine the altitude of the sun or other celestial bodies); signed "HOC FACET [SIC] VIVES" an inscribed "DON. COLVBINUS. DE. ALFIANO. MONACUS. VALLIS. VMBROSE. VTEBATUR. MD.LXXII" meaning Don Columbino de Alfiano, Monk of Vallombrosa [in Tuscany, where there was a famous monastry] used [this], 1572.
  • Calendula officinalis L. Asteraceae. Pot marigold, common marigold, ruds or ruddles. Calendula, because it was said to flower most commonly at the first of each month - the 'calends' (Coles, 1657). officinalis indicates that it was used in the 'offices' - the clinics - of the monks in medieval times. Annual herb. Distribution: Southern Europe. The Doctrine of Signatures, indicated that as the flowers resembled the pupil of the eye (along with Arnica, Inula and the ox-eye daisy), it was good for eye disorders (Porta, 1588). Coles (1658) writes '... the distilled water ... helpeth red and watery eyes, being washed therewith, which it does by Signature, as Crollius saith'. Culpeper writes: [recommending the leaves] '... loosen the belly, the juice held in the mouth helps the toothache and takes away any inflammation, or hot swelling being bathed with it mixed with a little vinegar.' The petals are used as a saffron substitute - ‘formerly much employed as a carminative
  • 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.
  • G. Reisch, Margarita philosophica
  • A history of domestic manners and sentiments in England during the middle ages / by Thomas Wright ; with illustrations from the illuminations in contemporary manuscripts and other sources, drawn & engraved by F.W. Fairholt.
  • A history of domestic manners and sentiments in England during the middle ages / by Thomas Wright ; with illustrations from the illuminations in contemporary manuscripts and other sources, drawn & engraved by F.W. Fairholt.
  • M0004717: A physician giving a lecture to five students, taken from Nicaise: <i>'La Grande Chirurgie de Guy de Chauliac </i> (1890)
  • M0004717: A physician giving a lecture to five students, taken from Nicaise: <i>'La Grande Chirurgie de Guy de Chauliac </i> (1890)
  • A Welsh leech book, or, Llyfr o feddyginiaeth, faithfully reproduced from the original manuscript / edited by Timothy Lewis, M.A.
  • Caricatural Mediaeval / Renaissance medical practitioners.
  • Tradition und Naturbeobachtung in den Illustrationen medizinischer Handschriften und Frühdrucke vornehmlich des 15. Jahrhunderts / Untersuchungen von Karl Sudhoff.
  • Tradition und Naturbeobachtung in den Illustrationen medizinischer Handschriften und Frühdrucke vornehmlich des 15. Jahrhunderts / Untersuchungen von Karl Sudhoff.
  • Eglinton Tournament: the procession of knights to the Pavilion of the Queen of Beauty. Lithograph by H. Wilson after C.A. d'Hardiviller, 1839.
  • Eglinton Tournament: front of Eglinton castle, a herald on horseback blowing a bugle. Lithograph by H. Wilson after C.A. d'Hardiviller, 1839.
  • Eglinton Tournament: knights performing jousts. Lithograph by H. Wilson after C.A. d'Hardiviller, 1839.
  • Liber de proprietatibus rerum / Bartholomei anglici.
  • A manual for the study of the sepulchral slabs and crosses of the Middle Ages / By the Rev. Edward L. Cutts, B. A.
  • A manual for the study of the sepulchral slabs and crosses of the Middle Ages / By the Rev. Edward L. Cutts, B. A.
  • A manual for the study of the sepulchral slabs and crosses of the Middle Ages / By the Rev. Edward L. Cutts, B. A.
  • Different attributes and displays of the arts and sciences in a classical courtyard. Engraving by Grignion after Le Clerc.
  • A female figure book keeping; representing arithmetic. Engraving by A. Vallée after M. de Vos.
  • Deutsche medizinische Inkunabeln : bibliographisch-literarische Untersuchungen / von Karl Sudhoff.
  • Das Buch der Cirurgia des Hieronymus Brunschwig ... / Begleit-Text von Gustav Klein.
  • A female figure playing a stringed instrument; representing music. Engraving by A. Vallée after M. de Vos.
  • Das Buch der Cirurgia des Hieronymus Brunschwig ... / Begleit-Text von Gustav Klein.