Hi all

For Christmas, Simon (my hubby) bought me several old herb books which I've been avidly reading, one is a paperback Pelican Book by a lady called Florence Ranson called 'British Herbs', its from 1949. Florence was on the Essex County Herb Committee from 1940 to 1946, back when the government of the time had people collecting wild herbs to send to companies. Those herbs were then turned into medicine during the war, how times have changed!

In the introduction to her book, Florence says that even back at the time of writing, the knowledge of the majority of the people with regard to herbs, was usually confined to rather vague ideas about some herbal remedy that an ancestor used. Furthermore the ability of the majority to recognise wild herbs was almost non existent! Funny how that doesn't seem to have changed much over the years, or has it? Do more people have a useful and informative knowledge of wild herbs and plants these days?

Another book I was lucky to recieve was called Valuable Herbal Prescriptions which was by a W. Bowker and was originally published in 1898. The book was written with the everyday man in mind and was apparently given free of charge to 'any suffering person who cares to write for it'. It lists herbal remedies in prescription form, that people could take along to the local herbalist to be made up to cure their ills from lumbago to troublesome periods. In the book there is an extract from a speech given by the Right Hon. W.E. Gladstone at Guy's Hospital, London on March 26th, 1890 in which he advocated that plant medicine was useful and he hoped would become further explored in the future. A fascinating little book, which has made me want to explore more the Victorian era and herbal medicine, any pointers on books or sources of information would be much appreciated.

Debs

 

Funny you should mention this, Debs. There is currently a discussion taking place on Henriette's herblist about Ellingwood's Eclectic Practice of Medicine which is now available on Google books, downloadable and printable as a pdf.
http://books.google.com/books?id=2NNLAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=finley+ellingwood+The+Eclectic+Practice+of+Medicine

Paul Bergner has also recommended R. Swinbourne Clymer, author of the Physiomedicalist classic Nature's Healing Agents (Still in print, since 1908.) Paul says that he wrote what may be the best exposition of the Thomsonian system ever printed, in 1905. Very practical. Apparently Clymer was trained in England, and got his Md from the last Physiomedical College, in Chicago, and was a student of Lyle there.

Paul said "This is basic Thomson, with the century of experience by the physiomedicalist physicians on both side of the Atlantic added." I guess this would cover general Victorian knowledge of herbal medicine. The book can be downloaded from http://www.archive.org/details/thomsoniansystem00clymiala

Matthew Wood's book, "The Practice of traditional Western Herbalism" is supposed to give a really good description of the major themes in herbal medicine. I have it, but haven't read it yet.

Other books I have but haven't read yet are Steven Pollington's Leechcraft about Anglo Saxon healing methods and Mary Beith's "Healing Threads: traditional Medicines of the Highlands and Islands". Joan Lane has edited "John Hall and his patients". This book is only available from the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust but can be ordered online. John Hall was Shakespeare's son-in-law and was reputed to be the best physician in the country, which may have been the reason why Shakespeare returned to Stratford in his later years to have his kidney condition dealt with. John Hall kept two manuscripts, one for all his successful treatments and another for those where the patient did not recover. When he died, his widow sold all his books to the another eminent medical man, who had the success book printed but lost the other one, which would have had details of the herbal remedies given to Shakespeare in it!

I must do some research about the priory in Northumberland which the Time team excavated a couple of years ago. There was a medieval script attached to it which gave all the remedies the monks used and they went to the valley where the majority of the herbs grew that they gathered.

Have you checked Henriette and Michael Moore's site for all their ancient online herbal texts?

Sarah

[edited to make the links clickable]

Hi Sarah

Thanks for the links, as a result I've just found a copy of Harold Ward's 'Herbal Manual' and William Fox's 'Working Man's Model Family Botanic Guide' on ebay and Amazon, I can't wait for both books to arrive. I know they're both available as .pdf's on Michael Moore's website but when I'm reading I'm old fashioned and prefer my reading matter to be in book form so I can turn the pages. The books are more portable than the computer lol! I'm currently looking for a copy of the Thompsonian System book, I've downloaded the pdf file from the link you supplied at archive.org and if I can't get a physical copy then I'll print that one off to read.

I've just joined Henriette's herblist again, I did subscribe a while back but couldn't keep up with all the posts as I didn't have time to read everything. I'll try again and see what happens It does have a decidedly american flavour to it though, and I have to say I personally find it a little difficult to navigate.

I have come across John Hall before, the book you mentioned has been added to my birthday book list, I'm also hoping to get to visit Hall's Croft and the other Shakespeare gardens next year. Re the Time Team programme, do you have an exact year that the programme was made or a title? A google search just now brought up Holy Island programme, but no mention of a Priory or a manuscript. The one you mentioned just doesn't ring a bell, although I've not seen all the time team programmes especially for the past 3 years. I'd also be interested in seeing this one and finding out more about the manuscript, so do share if you fins anything out

Debs

Herb Society Webmistress

<<Funny you should mention this, Debs. There is currently a discussion taking place on Henriette's herblist about Ellingwood's Eclectic Practice of Medicine which is now available on Google books, downloadable and printable as a pdf.
http://books.google.com/books?id=2NNLAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=finley+ellingwood+The+Eclectic+Practice+of+Medicine>>

Hi Sarah,

Me again, I visited Google Books via the link above and unless I'm missing something only small extracts of the book are viewable, I can't find the downloadable/printable pdf anywhere, the only place I've found that is on Michael Moore's site and on Henriette's site? Am I doing something wrong? I have created a google account etc and I'm logged in, any help or advice would be much appreciated.

Debs