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Doctors and the English seaside

Fashionable seaside towns in England owe much of their popularity to 18th-century doctors, who advised them to take the 'sea cure'.

  • Article

Ginger’s role in cures and courtroom battles

Some people will use a dose of ginger to help with hangovers – but it hasn’t always been a friend to the thirsty.

  • Article

Indian botanicals and heritage wars

Colonial botanical texts, as astonishingly beautiful as they are, may cast very dark shadows.

  • Article

Drugs in Victorian Britain

Many common remedies were taken throughout the 19th century, with more people than ever using them. What was the social and cultural context of this development?

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  • Dianthus caryophyllus L. Caryophyllaceae Carnation, clove-gilliflowers - Mediterranean Culpeper (1650) writes that ‘Clove-gilliflowers, resist the pestilence, strengthen the heart, liver and stomach, and provokes lust.’ They smell strongly of cloves, and an oil made from the petals is used in perfumery, soaps etc. The petals are sometimes used as a garnish for salads. In herbal medicine they are used to make a tonic. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Dr. Hand's remedies for children : pleasant physic, colic cure, teething lotion, worm elixir, diarrhoea mixture, general tonic, cough and croup medicine, chafing powder.
  • Dr. Hand's remedies for children : pleasant physic, colic cure, teething lotion, worm elixir, diarrhoea mixture, general tonic, cough and croup medicine, chafing powder.
  • Hepatica nobilis Mill. Ranunculaceae. Liverwort - not to be confused with the lichen of the same name. Distribution: North America. Liverwort (‘liver plant’): discontinued herbal medicine for disorders of the liver. The name and the use to which the Liverworts have been put medicinally is suggested, according to the doctrine of signatures, by the shape of the leaves which are three-lobed, like the liver. It is little used in modern herbalism but was employed in treating disorders of the liver and gall bladder, indigestion etc. It is highly toxic. Hepatica acutiloba was widely used for liver disorders in the 1880s, with up to 200,000 kilos of leaves being harvested per annum to make liver tonics - which eventually caused jaundice. Gerard (1633) calls it Hepaticum trifolium, Noble Liverwort, Golden Trefoile and herbe Trinity and writes: 'It is reported to be good against weakness of the liver which proceedeth from a hot cause, for it cooleth and strengtheneth it not a little. ' He adds ' Baptista Sardus[a Piedmontese physician fl. 1500] commendeth it and writeth that the chiefe vertue is in the root
  • Hepatica nobilis Mill. Ranunculaceae. Liverwort - not to be confused with the lichen of the same name. Distribution: North America. Liverwort (‘liver plant’): discontinued herbal medicine for disorders of the liver. The name and the use to which the Liverworts have been put medicinally is suggested, according to the doctrine of signatures, by the shape of the leaves which are three-lobed, like the liver. It is little used in modern herbalism but was employed in treating disorders of the liver and gall bladder, indigestion etc. It is highly toxic. Hepatica acutiloba was widely used for liver disorders in the 1880s, with up to 200,000 kilos of leaves being harvested per annum to make liver tonics - which eventually caused jaundice. Gerard (1633) calls it Hepaticum trifolium, Noble Liverwort, Golden Trefoile and herbe Trinity and writes: 'It is reported to be good against weakness of the liver which proceedeth from a hot cause, for it cooleth and strengtheneth it not a little. ' He adds ' Baptista Sardus [a Piedmontese physician fl. 1500] commendeth it and writeth that the chiefe vertue is in the root
  • Ayer's Sarsaparilla : purifies the blood, improves the complexion, makes the weak strong : "How fair she grows from day to day" : she uses Ayer's Sarsaparilla / [Dr. J.C. Ayer & Co.].
  • A priest pouring Elisir del Prete into a cup; advertising the tonic Elisir del Prete. Colour lithograph, ca. 1910.
  • A priest pouring Elisir del Prete into a cup; advertising the tonic Elisir del Prete. Colour lithograph, ca. 1910.
  • Ayer's Sarsaparilla : The deacon: "Land sake Liza, the very sight of that bottle makes me feel like another man" : Ayers Sarsaparilla is a compound concentrated extract- the strongest, best, cheapest blood medicine / Dr. J.C. Ayer & Co.
  • Ayer's Sarsaparilla : The deacon: "Land sake Liza, the very sight of that bottle makes me feel like another man" : Ayers Sarsaparilla is a compound concentrated extract- the strongest, best, cheapest blood medicine / Dr. J.C. Ayer & Co.
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Maladies and Medicine – Tudors, tonics and sickly Stuarts

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