Thursday 26 March 2009


On my desk ...


Nicholas Culpeper
(1616-54)
published "The Complete Herbal" in 1653.


My edition, my oldest book, is "Brook's Culpepper's Herbal Improved" - presumably originally owned by Charles Cottrell Junior, as he has signed his name on several pages, but I don't know who he was. I had it from my aunt years ago.
Second edition by Richard Brook, exact date not known, c1850.
It has 30 colour plates,428 pages of plant descriptions and herbal remedies, plus Index of Plants, Index to Remedies and Medical Preparations, and Index to Diseases.
....... a great read!
For kootoyoo.blogspot.com/2008/06/on-my-desk-players.html

4 comments:

Veri said...

this looks really very old. Very nice paintings!
have a nice weekend - Veri

Gilly said...

Connie, I love Culpepper! And those are such beautiful illustrations. It amazes me how much medical knowledge they had, and how they found that the various plants had medicinal qualities? I know they used to go on the fact that if a plant looked like the disease,they thought it would heal that disease, but they can't all be used on that basis.

I agree, its a fascinating read!

June Nelson said...

Hi Connie Just found your blog, hoping your docrafts connie lol, its lovely hope your ok huggies June (northernlass)

Serious Home Cook said...

I just bought my copy of this book at an antiquarian book shop in Stillwater, Minnesota, USA. It is really brilliant and the drawings are amazing. I can't wait to get stuck into it. It was originally sold by a shop called William Holton in Castewellan, County Down. Who knows how it travelled all the way into my hands over all these years! Cheers, Andrew Martin, St Paul, MN.