Culpepper, Nicholas

The great English herbalist Nicholas Culpepper (16161654) extolled elder by saying, "The juice of the leaves snuffed up into the nostrils purge the tunicles of the brain." In 1644, a book written by Dr. Martin Blockwich called Anatomie of the Elder was... 

Nicholas Culpepper, the famous English herbalist of the 1700s, said about elder, "I hold it needless to write any description since every boy that plays with a pop gun will not mistake another tree instead of the elder."... 

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. 

Poynter, F.N.L. "Nicholas Culpepper and the Paracelsians." In Science, medicine and society in the Renaissance, ed. Allen George Debus, I, 201-220., 1972. 

In England, the cause was supported by men like Francis Anthony, Robert Fludd and John Dee s son Arthur. The Royal Society of Physicians made a point of persecuting anyone suspected of Paracelsian sympathies (both Anthony and Fludd clashed with the Society). Other names in this field include John French (fl. 1640s), Thomas Thymme (d. 1620), who knew John Dee and translated Duchesne into English, and Nicholas Culpepper (1616—1654), the celebrated herbalist. 

This table is just a short selection of common herbs and their planetary rulers. Most of these associations are taken from the 16th century herbalist Nicholas Culpepper s, "Compleat Herbal," held in esteem by a number of alchemists old and modern. 

Nicholas Culpepper, 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 reads Is there no treakle in Gilead Is there no physician there . 

John Jeans Wecker, Cosmeticks Or, The Beautifying Part ofPhysick, trans. Nicholas Culpepper (London, 1660). 

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