Renaissance Herbs -History by June

[Guest guest]

Dear Herbalists,

I asked June for some information on Renaisance herbs and this is

what she sent me.

It is such a fascinating post that I thought you might have be

interested.....Love Penny

 

Here's what I have. I don't think of it as much- no remedies in

themselves

just on the practice of herbal medicine. Culpepper would be good

for

remedies as he is thought to be a great herbalist of that time

period. It is a

big time period. The printing press was developed in the 15th

century so

probably would have better luck after that time period.Also, right

before

this time period people who delt with herbs and folk medicine

where

thought to be evil. The chruch felt people deserved illness and

people who

could " cure " them were thought to work for the devil- so a lot of

stuff was

lost or not written down. What a neat project your friend is

working on!!

The Renaissance is one of my very favorite time periods. I have a

friend

who does the fairs- I have been invited to go and plan to very

soon!! June

 

P.S.- alchelmist and medicne would also be areas to look into as

treatment

of illness. At that time it all was kind of lumped together.

 

The Renaissance<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns =

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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 .

 

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.

 

The rise of Christianity and the return of shamanism

 

After the 3rd century A.D., as the Christian Church assumed the power

vacuum created

by the disintegration of the old Roman Empire, practice and research in

medicine declined

and was replaced by a belief in God's wrath as the cause of the frequent

epidemics. In a

period of only a few hundred years, the Roman Empire declined to a state

of depravity

and barbarism; philosophical and religious atavism often accompanies

periods of

disintegration in civilization[22], and the decline of Rome is a classic

example. The medical

tradition reverted to the stage of institutionalized shamanism: early

Christian medicine

emphasized prayer, confession of sins, laying on of hands, exorcisms,

and miracles

through intervention of saints. In Byzantium, the older Graeco-Roman

medical practice

continued to some extent alongside the Christian practitioners. The

Graeco-Roman

traditional physicians often charged exorbitant fees; as their numbers

declined, their

increasing scarcity together with the relative effectiveness of their

methods created an

imbalance of low supply and high demand. Consequently, the Christians,

who provided

their services free within the church framework, often persecuted and

harassed them.

(This suggests one possible explanation for the constant warfare between

the two groups

even unto the present.)

 

During 1348-1350 A.D., bubonic plague hit Europe, killing over 25

million people. Bubonic

plague epidemics recurred over the next several hundred years. After

several experiences

with epidemics, perceptive people recognized that rats were responsible

for spreading the

plague; communities in which domestic cats helped reduce the rat

population experienced

lower morbidity from plague. However, in a frenzy of zealousness and

irrational behavior

typical of the time, the Church destroyed cats because Church officials

labelled them as

the devil's helpers due to their voluptuous habits and behavior.

Throughout Europe,

Church henchmen burned and killed cats, as well as herbalists, having

associated them

both with witchcraft and paganism. This period was not favorable to the

progress of

either medicine or herbal knowledge. Herbalists were periodically

persecuted, first by the

Christian Church, and later by the medical societies that had been

created by Church

authority.

 

Many respected and ethical physicians, after having suffered persecution

for simply

practicing medicine as best they could, welcomed the offer of official

protection and

recognition from the Church and from secular authorities in the 12th

century. With the

blessing of the Pope, the monarchies of France and Italy monopolized

medieval medical

education and licensed the medical profession. However, this protection

came at a price;

formal university studies, which emphasized theory, rhetoric, and

philosophical

speculations, helped to elevate medicine to a higher status while

subjugating it to

scrutiny and control by political and religious authorities. Platonic

and Aristotelian ideals

were industriously applied to the task of building professional

monopolies, and practical

knowledge was discarded by the wayside. As in law and theology,

practical skills were

associated with a lower status; thus, surgery and pharmacy studies and

were often

excluded from the curriculum. The modern Western tendency to be awed by

grandiose

philosophical theories and themes can be traced to the medieval

obsession with

other-worldly affairs, which can be neither seen, nor felt, nor verified

empirically. Both

medieval and modern-day physicians have invoked the blessings of

Hippocrates, but have

rarely quoted him to avoid embarrassment to themselves. ( " In medicine

one must pay

attention not to plausible theorizing but to experience and reason

together. " )

 

Medicine in Byzantium and Persia

 

While the European practice of medicine degenerated for over 1000 years,

the focus of

medical advancement shifted toward the Middle East. Byzantium, during

the 5th to 8th

centuries A.D., inherited the wealth of medical knowledge accumulated

during the Greek

and Roman eras. Even though Byzantium was wrought with religious strife,

superstition,

and general decadence as was the Roman empire preceding it, scholarly

pursuits were

protected to a greater degree than in barbarian-dominated Western

Europe. The

physician-scholar Oribasius wrote volumes of compilations of medical

knowledge, noted his

sources and quoted them accurately. While lacking in original thinking,

his works are

valued for their faithful transmission of knowledge which may have

otherwise perished.

 

It was in Persia that the knowledge faithfully preserved by Byzantine

scholars eventually

flourished and developed into a more advanced system of medicine.

Islamic physicians

combined Graeco-Roman knowledge of medicine with Hindu and Islamic

practices and

continued the advancement of medicine in the spirit of Hippocrates. The

Middle East

during the Middle Ages continued to be a warring ground and a conduit

for epidemic

illnesses passing between Europe and the Orient; religious pilgrimages

and trade

aggravated the problem, ultimately retarding economic development in

Europe and much

of the Middle East. Islamic medical practitioners developed methods of

treating these

illnesses. The caliphs of Persia encouraged the collection and

translation of Greek medical

knowledge into Syriac language and later into Arabic. In Persia during

the 9th century,

formalized training was established for physicians, surgeons,

bonesetters, and

pharmacists. The Persian pharmacopoeia listed over 720 drugs, including

medicinal plants

of Greek, Hindu, and Persian origin.

 

The Renaissance and restoration of a European medical tradition

 

During and after the 12th century A.D., European scholars translated

medical texts of

Avicenna and other Islamic physicians from Arabic into Latin. In the

13th century, after

almost one thousand years of neglect, physicians resumed studies of

anatomy. However,

the emphasis of anatomy and physiology and a focus on physical causes of

illness led to

the neglect of the Hippocratic philosophy in medicine and an emphasis on

the use of

drastic remedies to deal with these presumed causes. Physicians tended

to ignore the

numerous side-effects resulting from such drastic remedies. Hippocrates'

philosophy of

human ecology was but a faint memory in the minds of physicians, and in

the 16th

century, Philippus A. Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (known to

commoners as

Paracelsus) decisively rejected the ideas of Hippocrates and attempted

to derive a new

philosophy of medicine based on Christian dogma, Neoplatonic philosophy,

and the

correspondences between the microcosm and the macrocosm; this herculean

task may

have humbled Mr. von Hohenheim sufficiently to guide him toward

observations of nature

for ideas. Unfortunately, he placed emphasis on astrology and alchemy,

rather than upon

empirical observation. He believed that man functioned chemically and

that illness could

only be treated chemically, and he focused his theories on unseen

chemical phenomena,

rather than upon observable symptoms and clinical signs. While chemistry

plays an

undeniable role in human health, emphasis of the unseen over the

immediately observable

has blinded medicine to this day.

 

During the Renaissance period, numerous theories of health and medicine

arose to

attempt to remedy the failings of contemporary medical practice.

Nicholas Culpeper

compiled an eclectic variety of information on many herbs, incorporating

a liberal dose of

astrology, yet he ignored and deleted references to the " hot and cold "

nature of remedies

that is so important to traditional Chinese medicine.

 

In spite of persecution by institutions and by religious authorities,

herbalists during recent

centuries have attempted to reestablish the science of herbal medicine.

Samuel

Thompson, an uneducated but widely respected herbalist who acquired a

knowledge of

herbs through broad personal experience, influenced popular and

professional opinion to

such a degree that many doctors and herbalists began referring to

themselves as

Thompsonians; by so doing they distinguished themselves from the

" Regular " physicians of

19th century America who used drastic, toxic, and often deadly remedies

such as calomel

and blood letting. Thompson's common sense approach led to a renewal of

the empirical

method in herbal medicine. However, in spite of the popularity of herbal

doctors during the

19th century, powerful medical syndicates successfully quashed herbal

traditions in

America by the early 20th century. Meanwhile, many European countries

including

Germany, England, and France fostered the growth of herbal traditions.

 

In comparing the progress of Chinese medicine with that of European

medicine, as the

reader of history considers the follies of the European physicians and

medical scientists, it

is difficult to suppress an urge to write large the maxim of

Hippocrates: " In medicine one

must pay attention not to plausible theorizing but to experience and

reason together. " A

thousand years of turmoil, cultural decay, and religious mania appears

to have shaken the

common sense out of the average European as well as Europe's physicians.

Numerous

creative physicians attempted to restore the logical foundation and

philosophical vantage

points lost during the disintegration of the Roman Empire, but most of

these attempts

suffered from an excess of religious speculation and philosophical

theorizing, and a

deficiency of attention to symptoms, clinical signs, and other empirical

phenomena.

 

During the Dark Ages, although the developing Christian Church rejected

the scientific

knowledge of the past, evidence suggests that herbal medicine was still

widely practiced

by Anglo-Saxon shamans, who commonly combined herbal remedies with

chants, ritual

and magical incantations. For example, the recipe for an herbal salve to

ward off elves

and nightmares included placing the concoction beneath an altar, singing

nine masses

over it, boiling it in butter and mutton fat, throwing the remainder

into running water and

finally smearing the product over the patient's feet, head and eyes.

During the latter part

of the Dark Ages, the church began to persecute folk healers and

herbalists; and it is

thought that many herbal recipes were lost during this period.

 

In the Middle Ages, herbal medicine was adopted on a grand scale, and

the Benedictine

monastic order became renowned for its knowledge and use of herbal

medicine. Plants

such as mustard, fennel, thyme, sage, rue, mint, parsley and pennyroyal

were common

herbs in monastic infirmaries. This was an era of witches and demons; so

various

mind-altering herbal recipes were used for spells and flight by witches,

while other herbal

concoctions were employed to exorcise demons and spirits from the

possessed.

 

As the Middle Ages came to a close, it was common that individual

villages each had a

healer skilled in the use of herbs, and these healers used many herbal

recipes and tonics

that since have been shown to possess useful medicinal properties.

Paracelsus (1493 to

1541), a well-educated physician of the period, is well known for

revolutionizing the

practice of medicine, for he developed the precepts by which true

medical practitioners

should be judged, thereby helping to rid medicine of those who preyed on

the poor and

uneducated with worthless treatments and antidotes.

 

Paracelsus was infatuated with the use of herbal cures, folk charms,

magical rites and the

occult arts as an approach to treating disease. He studied and practiced

a radically

different style of medicine from that of the orthodox physicians of the

period,

incorporating ideas of balancing mind, body and spirit with the use of

herbs as a means of

treating and preventing disease. During this same time period, the

apothecary, the

individual entrusted with maintaining required supplies of medicines,

herbs and

concoctions, began to evolve into a professional medical practitioner

skilled in both the

arts of medicine and herbal therapy.

 

Various manuscripts and books dealing with herbs and herbal medicines

began to appear

with the invention of the printing press in the late 15th century.

William Turner's The New

Herbal (1551), John Gerard's Herball (1597) and Nicholas Culpeper's

Herball (1650) became

the standard herbal texts of the period and are still utilized today.

Modern scientific

methods began to evolve in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the

widespread use of

traditional folk medicines began to wane. The number of scientifically

educated physicians

increased and the number of those trained in folk and herbal medicines

decreased.