Materia Medica and Herbal Highlights from

Special Collections
Among the holdings of the Galter Health Sciences Library
Special Collections are many rare and curious volumes on the
subject of materia medica.

The texts describe the physical appearance and the virtues of

the materia. Most are complimented with woodcuts or
engravings illustrating the plants, minerals, and animal
products which were once used as curatives in the practice of
medicine.

The first printed herbals which appeared in the fifteenth

century relied on ancient authors for text.

The accessibility and standardization of these works

perpetuated the influence of venerable authors such as
Theophrastus (371–287 BCE) and Dioscorides (circa 40-90 CE).

2000 BCE “Here, eat this root.”

1000 CE “That root is heathen, say a prayer.”
1850 CE “That prayer is superstition, drink this potion.”
1940 CE “That potion is snake oil, swallow this pill.”
1985 CE “That pill is ineffective, take this antibiotic.”
2000 CE “That antibiotic is artificial, here, take this root.”—
Anonymous
Apuleius Barbarus (4th century CE)

The herbal of Pseudo-Apuleius from the ninth-century

manuscript in the abbey of Monte Cassino (Codex casinensis
97) together with the first printed edition of Joh. Phil. de
Lignamine (Editio princeps Romae 1481) both in facsimile,
described and annotated by F. W. T. Hunger. Leyden, Brill,
1935.

The facsimiles of the manuscript and of the first printed

edition appear on opposite pages.

The herbal depicts 131 plants with instructions for their use
in medicines. This was the first printed work on plants having
numerous illustrations and is generally termed the first
printed illustrated herbal.

The history of the work has been lost with the passage of
time, leading to endless speculation on the identity of the
author.

This publication also inspired

similar texts such as
Hortus sanitatis…
Hortus sanitatis, germanice. Strassburg, Renatus Beck,
1515.

Originally published in Latin in 1485, Hortus sanitatis,

in its many editions and
translations, was the most
popular and influential
herbal of its time, serving
as an encyclopedia of the
plant, animal and mineral
kingdoms and the medical
applications of their products.

The contents includes a short

treatise on urine analysis as
depicted in the wood-cut image.

The Library’s German language edition is filled with

quaint, hand-colored woodcuts depicting
life in the late Middle Ages and early
Renaissance.

This text was printed by Renatus [Reinhard]

Beck in Strasbourg (Alsace). Printer’s Mark
Theophrastus (c. 371 – c. 287 BCE)

De Historia Plantarum…
Amstelsdami : Apud Henricum
Laurentium, 1644.

Successor to the great philosopher

Aristotle, Theophrastus compiled
this survey of plants which is
among his most important works
and is the first systemization of
plant life. Usually translated as
Enquiry into Plants, it was written
between the 3rd and the 2nd
century BCE.

The Enquiry was originally ten

books, of which nine survive. The work is arranged into a
system whereby plants are classified according to their modes
of generation, their localities, their sizes, and according to their
practical uses such as foods, juices, herbs, etc. The first book
deals with the parts of plants; the second book with the
reproduction of plants and the times and manner of sowing;
the third, fourth, and fifth books are devoted to trees, their
types, their locations, and their practical applications; the sixth
book deals with shrubs and spiny plants; the seventh book
deals with herbs; the eighth book deals with plants that
produce edible seeds; and the ninth book deals with plants
that produce useful juices, gums, resins, etc.
Dioscorides Pedanius (circa 40-90 CE)

De medica materia… Coloniae, Opera et impensa Joannis

Soteris, 1529.

Dioscorides was a Greek physician and botanist; he practiced

medicine in Rome at the time of Nero and was a surgeon
with the army of the emperor. He had the opportunity to
travel extensively, seeking medicinal substances (plants and
minerals) from all over the Roman and Greek world. His text
is the premiere historical source of information about the
medicines used by the Greeks, Romans, and other cultures
of antiquity. It formed the core of the European
pharmacopeia through the 19th century.

This is the first Greek-Latin parallel edition; the Greek text is

based on the 1518 Aldine edition. The Latin translation and
commentary was prepared by Marcellus Vergilius (1464-
1521) and it is known for its excellence.

The text is an encyclopedia of materia medica in five books

which embodied the results of Greek research in pharmacy
and applied botany. More than 600 plants and plant
ingredients, 90 minerals, and 35 animal products are
described. The work is of importance also for the history of
ancient chemistry, as it describes simple chemical
preparations and mentions the earliest reaction of wet
analysis.
Elizabeth Blackwell (1707-1758)

A curious herbal, containing five hundred cuts, of the most

useful plants, which are now used in the practice of physick.
Engraved on folio copper plates, after drawings, taken from
the life by Elizabeth Blackwell. To which is added a short
description of ye plants; and their common uses in physic.
London : Printed for John Nourse at the Lamb without
Temple Bar, 1739. (2 volumes)

Blackwell, a Scot,
achieved fame as
a botanical
illustrator, as both
artist and
engraver for the
plates of
A Curious Herbal,
published between Illustration on preliminary page granting
1737 and 1739. The Blackwell permission to publisher her work
book illustrated by the Royal College of Physicians, July 1727
many odd-looking and unknown plants from the New
World, and was designed as a reference work on medicinal
plants for the use of physicians and apothecaries.
Rembert Dodoens (1517-1585)

Stirpium historiae pemptades sex. Antverpiae : Ex officina

Christophori Plantini, 1583.

Dodoens was a Flemish physician

and botanist. His work, translates
as History of plants organized in
six large sections each composed
of five chapters. His work is
considered one of the foremost
botanical works of the late 16th
century.

He grouped plants according to

their properties and common
similarities as opposed to an alphabetical order.

Through Henry Lyte’s English translation, the text

became a standard in England.

It was the basis of John Gerard’s celebrated Herball.

Dodoens served as physician to the Holy Roman emperor
Maximilian II and his successor, Rudolph II. He joined the
faculty of medicine at Leiden University in 1582.
John Gerard (1545-1612)

The herball or generall historie of plantes ... Imprinted at

London : By John Norton, 1597.

Gerard was a botanist and herbalist. He maintained a large

herbal garden in London. His chief notability is as the author
of a big – 1480 pages – and heavily illustrated Herball, or
Generall Historie of Plantes. First published in 1597, it was the
most widely circulated botany book in English in the 17th
century. Except for the additions of a number of plants from
his own garden and from North America, Gerard's Herbal is
largely an English translation of Rembert Dodoens Herbal of
1554, itself also highly popular (in Dutch, Latin, French and
other English translation). Gerard's Herball is profusely
illustrated with high-quality drawings of plants, with the
printer's woodcuts for the drawings largely coming from
Dodoens' book and from other Continental European
sources. After Gerard's death in 1633, his Herbal was
corrected and expanded (to about 1700 pages), which
strengthened the book's position in the 17th century.

John Gerard (1545-1612)

The herball or generall historie of plantes ...London : Printed

by Adam Islip, Joice Norton and Richard Whitakers, 1633.

The botantical genus Gerardia is named in his honor.

Paul de Reneaulme (1560-1624)

Specimen historiae plantarum. Paris: Hadrianus Beys,

1611.

A beautifully illustrated
prototype history of plants
based on a selection of
species cultivated at the
Royal Garden in Paris,
which Reneaulme described
using a nomenclature of his
own invention derived from
Greek rather than Latin.

This is an important but

neglected work with
engravings that are of the
highest quality, exquisitely
sensitive and extremely
personal in treatment.

A physician and native of

Blois, Reneaulme was ahead of time in showing the
necessity of plant classification, but unfortunately the
book created no stir among his contemporaries.
William Woodville (1752-1805)

Medical botany containing systematic and general

descriptions, with plates of all the medicinal plants,
indigenous and exotic, comprehended in the catalogues of
the materia medica, as published by the Royal Colleges of
Physicians of London and Edinburgh accompanied with a
circumstantial detail of their medicinal effects, and of the
diseases in which they have been most successfully
employed… London : Printed and sold for the author, by
James Phillips…1790-1794 (3 volumes + supplement)

Woodville's medical career was distinguished by his

contributions to the prevention of smallpox and his deep
interest in botany. He was elected to the Linnean Society in
1791, and maintained a botanic garden within the grounds
of the Smallpox Hospital.

The compendium has detailed descriptions of the physical

appearance, location, and therapeutic use of 274 herbs
believed to hold healing and other health promoting
properties. Woodville provided genus and species wherever
applicable, and each herb is illustrated by a copper
engraved plate.
Samuel Stearns (1741-1809)

The American herbal, or materia medica : wherein the

virtues of the mineral, vegetable, and animal productions of
North and South America are laid open, so far as they are
known; and their uses in the practice of physic and surgery
exhibited. Comprehending an account of a large number of
new medical discoveries and improvements, which are
compiled from the best authorities ... Walpole [New
Hampshire], printed by David Carlisle, for Thomas &
Thomas, and the author, 1801.

Born in Bolton, Massachusetts in 1747, Stearns became a

physician and astronomer, practicing his profession first in
Worcester, Massachusetts, then in New York, and finally in
Brattleborough, Vermont.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Stearns

published the first herbal produced and printed in the
United States, as opposed to those which were reprints of
European works.

From the 17th to the 19th centuries, colonial housewives

had to supervise or do their own growing and harvesting of
herbs. Living in a wilderness separated from any near-by
source of supply, they were forced to provide as liberally as
they could for food and medicine during the coming year.
The work also includes information on Native American
medicines.
Jacob Bigelow (1787-1879)

American medical botany : being a collection of the native

medicinal plants of the United States, containing their
botanical history and chemical analysis, and properties and
uses in medicine, diet and the arts, with coloured
engravings… Boston : published by Cummings and Hilliard;
[Cambridge] University Press, Hilliard and Metcalf, 1817-
1821.

Bigelow’s text is a milestone in

the history of North American
medicinal plant literature and
an important landmark in the
history of printing, as it is the
first American book printed
with color plates!

Bigelow was a native of

Massachusetts. He earned his
medical degree from the
University of Pennsylvania in
1810 and went on to practice medicine in Boston. Later he
became a lecturer in botany at Harvard.