The Renaissance
During this period, new political independence from the church and
a renewed interest in the classics fostered a flowering of
scientific, medical and cultural achievement that is unparalleled
in human history. Many of the great herbal's were written,
compiled and printed during this time. Some of these were as
follows:
1525
Bancke's Herbal was the first printed herbal.
1526
Grete Herball printed by Peter Treveris had the highest reputation
of the earlier English herbal's.
1550
Turner's Herbs, by the physician and divine, William Turner
(1510-1568). He was regarded as `the father of British Botany,"
because he was the first Englishman who studied plants
scientifically.
At the same time, the German, Fuch's Herbal by Leonhard Fuchs
(1501-1566) was written and became another landmark work with
beautiful illustrations.
1552
Aztec Herbal, published in 1552 is the earliest treatise on Aztec
pharmacology. Written by Martin de la Cruz, an Aztec doctor, it
was later translated by Juan Badiano, an Indian doctor from
Xochimilco. It was discovered in the Vatican library in 1919 and
has become known as the Baliano Codex.
1554
Rembert Dodoens (1517-1585) was a Belgian botanist. His herbal
called Histoire de Plantes incorporated many of Fuch's woodcuts
along with some new illustrations. His most important book, The
Pemptades, became the basis of the English herbal known as
Gerard's Herbal.
1597 & 1633
Gerard's Herbal by John Gerard (1545-1612) is the second of the
three greatest English herbalists, Turner, Gerard and Parkinson.
Gerard was a surgeon, well traveled and a dedicated gardener. He
grew over 1000 plants mostly for seed. His herbal is largely based
on the early Pemptades by Dodoens and was probably translated into
English on commission by a Dr. Priest. Gerard altered the
classification of plants and added a great deal from his personal
observations. First published in 1597, it was later corrected and
reprinted in 1633. Even to this day, amateurs calling themselves,
"herbalists, freely plagiarize material from Gerard's herbal.
In his work we see the old belief in the efficacy of herbs to
treat not only physical diseases but those of the mind and spirit.
This belief is shared by the greatest civilizations of antiquity.
Gerard also describes methods of aromatherapy involving the
inhalation of volatile oils, the absorption of these through the
skin into the circulatory system.
1629 & 1640
John Parkinson (1567-1650) was the last of the great English
herbalists. His books include Paradisi in Sole Terrestris (A
Garden of Pleasant Flowers) published in 1629, and Theatrum
Botanicum (The Theater of Plants) published in 1640 at the age of
73.
Parkinson's monumental Theatrum Botanicum describes over 3800
plants and was the most complete and aesthetically beautiful
English treatise on plants of the day.
1652
Nicolas Culpeper (1616-1654) expounded on the relationship of
astrology and herbs and the older belief in the "Doctrine of
Signatures". This belief extending deep into the distant past
herbal traditions of the world maintains that there is a
relationship between the way a plant appears and the condition for
which it is indicated.
Culpeper was the most loved by the people and hated by his
professional colleagues herbal doctor of his day. It was the
custom of the time for official medical knowledge to be printed
and discussed only in Latin. In Culpeper's opinion, this was
simply an elitist ploy to keep the knowledge of herbs and healing
from the masses and thereby ensure the vested interests of the
medical profession. There was also some sense, that this would
protect the masses from possibly mistreating themselves. Medical
elitism, of course, continues to this day in many forms and the
many branches of medicine and with the American Medical
Association (AMA) and other countries such as the British Medical
Association (BMA).
Always the physician of the people, Culpeper was the most hated by
his professional colleagues because he violated a solemn oath of
London's College of Physicians by translating from the Latin some
of the elitist works of the time, notably the Pharmacopoeia which
he retitled A Physicall Directory. Some of this information
eventually found its way into his ever popular Culpeper's Herbal.
He was the most loved because by translating the works of his
greedy and paranoid colleagues, he was able to empower common folk
with the knowledge of self treatment. Always a man of the people,
Culpeper charged small fees, had an unaffected manner and was
especially loved by his poor London West-end patients. The result
is that he continues to be honored in the minds of the people with
Culpeper's Herbal being reprinted through countless versions and
editions up to the present.
1656
William Coles (1626-1662) authored two books, The Art of Simpling
and Adam in Eden. Like Culpeper, he also wrote in colloquial
English but he was severely critical of Culpeper and described him
as being, "ignorant in the forme of Simples" and "transcribing out
of old works only what was useful". Cole was also critical of
Culpeper's astrological botany and the association of plants with
planetary influences. Cole is regarded as a major exponent in
English of the Doctrine of Signatures.
Because medicine tended to be the official domain of either the
church or the state, folk medicine throughout the Middle Ages,
developed and was relegated to the practice of herbalists and
healers who utilized non-official healing methods associated with
previous pagan religions to attend to the needs of the those who
were unable to afford the ministrations of the wealthy medical
elite. This included women who were branded as witches (see the
following section, Women and Healing), men who were called
warlocks and other social outcasts who rebelled against the
domination of Church and state and sought to rediscover their
ancient so-called pagan religious customs and healing with the use
of herbs and various charms. In the name of preserving Christian
values, the Inquisition and witch-hunts became a convenient method
to suppress and denigrate the efforts of unofficial lay healers.
Today, some may still look disdainfully on the witches' strange
use of animal and mineral substances described in Shakespeare's
Macbeth. However, this only alludes to the outlaw status of many
women healers and their use of bonafide and potent remedies,
however strange. Interestingly Shakespeare's son-in-saw and next
door neighbor, John Hall was a great herbalist of the time whose
official medical armamentarium included various animal parts,
herbs and minerals much as these even today are also part of
Traditional Chinese Medicine.
The psychological aspects of healing through the use of rituals,
prayers, charms and talismans represent another aspect of
traditional herbal shamanism. It was not the power and validity of
such methods of healing with which the Church took issue, for
priests similarly employed various religious relics, specially
consecrated `holy' water and the symbol of the cross in a similar
way. Rather is was the question by whose authority the healing was
achieved. If, therefore, an individual was healed with a
non-Christian symbol, it must have been by the power of the devil.
During the 17th century, the Swiss physician, Philippus Paracelsus
advocated the use of minerals. These included methods of purifying
and using minerals such as copper, sulfur, arsenic, mercury and
iron. Because of his emphasis on the importance of Chemistry,
Paracelsus holds two seeming contradictory distinctions as the
"father of alchemy" and the founder of a system of mineral drug
medicine that has ultimately resulted in the primacy of plants
used for medicine.
WOMEN AND HEALING
It may be noticed that thus far, that other than mythological
figures such as Hygeia, Hepatica and other ancient goddesses, the
only prominent historical woman described in this overview of the
history of herbal medicine is Hildegard. While there were
undoubtedly others, little seems to be known about them and they
certainly do not play a prominent role in the chronicled history
of medicine with the exception of a few in comparatively recent
times. Certainly this is not because women, as a group, had no
interest in healing. Quite the opposite.
With the preponderant numbers of women who enroll in our course
and attend our various seminars, women as a group, in my opinion
are the most apt healers, with a natural tendency of compassion
required for healing. Further, unlike men, their monthly and
cyclic physiological needs (menses, childbirth and menopause)
involve them directly on a regular basis with healing. We can only
assume, therefore, that women have always had a lively and direct
involvement with health and healing but were, along with other
disadvantaged groups of peoples such as native people, blacks and
Jews, simply overlooked in the chronicles of history.
Before the great holocaust of the 20th century with the execution
of 100's of thousands of Jews, gypsies and other ethnic groups by
the Germans during the 2nd world war, another holocaust involving
perhaps even greater numbers of women healers occurred between the
14th and 17th centuries with the systemic torture and executions
of millions of women as witches. According to Barbara Ehrenreich
and Deirdre English in their very important booklet entitled
Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers (Glass
Mountain Pamphlets, P. O. box 238, Oyster Bay, N.Y., 11771), "The
great majority of them were lay healers serving the peasant
population, and their suppression marks one of the struggles in
the history of man's suppression of women as healers."
They go on to say that "The witch-hunts represented well-organized
campaigns, initiated, financed and executed by Church and State."
They came about coincident with the evolution of the European
medical profession and the apparent need to suppress any attempts
by the lay people to minister to their own medical needs.
..... Because of the Medieval Church, with the support of kings,
princes and secular authorities, controlled medical education and
practice, the Inquisition (witch-hunts) constitutes, among other
things, an early instance of the `professional' repudiating the
skills and interfering with the rights of the `nonprofessional' to
minister to the poor. (Thomas Szasz, The Manufacture of Madness)
As Ehrenreich and English state, "Witch hunts did not eliminate
the lower class woman healer, but they branded her forever as
superstitious and possibly malevolent. So thoroughly was she
discredited among the emerging middle classes that in the 17th and
18th centuries it was possible for male practitioners to make
serious inroads into that last preserve of female healing ---
midwifery. Nonprofessional male practitioners - "barber surgeons"
- lead the assault in England, claiming technical superiority on
the basis of their use of the obstetrical forceps. ---- Female
midwives in England organized and charged the male intruders with
commercialism and dangerous misuse of the forceps. But it was too
late - the women were easily put down as ignorant "old wives"
clinging to the superstitions of the past."
Ehrenreich and English's book goes on to describe the male take
over of the roles of healing from the 1800's through the early
20th century throughout all European countries and in the US.
It is difficult for us today to conceive of the profound lack of
personal rights and the historical repression of women that has
been so characteristic of the history of both Western and Eastern
countries of the world. Rather than to over simplistically condemn
men as a group, since I believe that ultimately both men and women
suffer from female repression, the cause seems to coincide with
the rise of warlike civilizations where physical strength and
brutality became more of a necessity for survival and highly
valued by both sexes. Witness our own time, that as war is
becoming more technological and mechanized, it is less the
exclusive domain of men as women are admitted into the military.
Concomitantly, women's rights are emerging more strongly to the
fore in all sectors of society.
It is valuable to study more feminine oriented ancient
civilizations such as the Mycenaean civilization of Crete which
existed from around 1500 to 1100 B.C that made many important
contributions to the evolution of civilization.
The following section of describes the rise of the Eclectic
medical system in the US. Among the many unique achievements of
the Eclectics was the recognition, admission and graduation of
women and blacks into the medical profession.
