Culpeper, Nicholas

Culpeper, Nicholas. The complete herbal by Nicholas Culpeper. A new edition. Birmingham Kynoch P, 1953. 

Culpeper, Nicholas. Mr. Culpepper s Treatise of aurum potabile being a description of the three-fold world. Viz., elimentary celestiall intellectuall containing the knowledge necessary to the study of Hermetick philosophy. London , 1657. 

Thulesius, Olav. Nicholas Culpeper. English physician and astrologer. New York Basingstoke St Martins Press Macmillan, 1992. 

The first name to be associated with herbal practice and to be attached to writings on the subject is that of Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654), the "father" of medical herbalism. This son of the Rev. Thomas Culpeper, M.A., Rector of Oakley, Surrey, was by no means the untutored hind he is alleged to be by uninformed or biased critics. Although his system is regarded by the health philosopher of our day as "Culpeperism" rather than medical herbalism as we know it, the independently-minded Nicholas... 

Nicholas Culpeper, in his Dispensatory (1649), refers to both Mithridatium and Venetian treacle. References in English literature to theriac always refer to it as treacle. Miles Coverdale translated balm as treacle in his Bible of 1538. This was repeated in the Matthew Bible and Bishops Bible of 1568. Jeremiah 8 v 22 therefore read Is there no treakle in Gilead Is there no physician there . 

Meadowsweet Filipendula ulmaria) is a common wild plant in Britain, Europe, and North America that also contains salicin, but it is not as potent as willow bark which has a higher salicin content. Its primary medicinal actions are antirheumatic, anti-inflammatory, carminative, antacid, antiemetic, astringent, and diuretic. The flower buds of meadowsweet are the source for salicin and methyl salicylate. Ingestion of the flower buds in a tea results in the breakdown of salicin to salicylic acid. Nicholas Culpeper, a seventeenth-century English pharmacist, mentioned the use of meadowsweet flower buds to help break fevers and promote sweating during a cold or flu. 

As a result of his observations of Nature, Edward Stone (1702-1768), a curate from Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire, used willow bark in 1763 to treat more than 50 patients with malaria. In 1792, the physician Samuel James (1763-1831) used the bark of goat willow (or pussy-willow , Salix caprea) to reduce fever. Stones work first found general recognition in Nicholas Culpeper s Complete Herbal, in the edition of 1802, and willow bark was acknowledged thereafter as... 

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