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| Photo and Article Ⓒ Debs Cook |
As history shows, in the end there was no clear winner at Edgehill with each side seeing some 500 dead men and 1,500 wounded, but having tended the injured and dying to the best of his ability Culpeper was granted a commission in 1643 becoming Captain to an infantry troop and fought at the Siege of Reading (4th November 1642 – 25th April 1643), where he took a bullet to the chest which is believed to have caused health problems for the rest of his life, some accounts say the wound was to the shoulder, but this is not commensurate with the conditions under which Culpeper eventually died, the chest makes more sense.
There were 3 stages to the set of events that became known as the English Civil Wars they began in in the August of 1642 and ended in September 1651. In 1649 Charles I was executed and the monarchy was abolished and along with it the Church of England’s monopoly on censorship of printed publications which was granted by James I in 1603. Under the old system anyone found printing, selling or being in possession of books which had not been vetoed and edited by church authorities would incur corporal punishment.
Culpeper took advantage of the removal of censorship and decided to make his plan to benefit the common man by giving them texts to read to help heal themselves, texted such as these had previously only been printed in Latin. He started with the ‘Pharmacopoeia Londonesis’ published in Latin by the Royal College of Physicians, he translated the work into English and in late 1649 his translation ‘A Physical Directory, or a Translation of the London Dispensary’ was published and made available to everyone.
Culpeper famously wrote “I am writing for the Press a translation of the Physicians' medicine book from Latin into English so that all my fellow countrymen and apothecaries can understand what the Doctors write on their bills. Hitherto they made medicine a secret conspiracy, writing prescriptions in mysterious Latin to hide ignorance and to impress upon the patient. They want to keep their book a secret, not for everybody to know. Not long ago parsons, like the predecessors of my grand-father, used to preach and prey in Latin, whether he or his parishioners understood anything of this language or not. This practice, though sacred in the eyes of our ancestors, appears ridiculous to us. Now everyone enjoys the gospel in plain English. I am convinced the same must happen with medicine and prescriptions.”
His decision to publish the work made him even more enemies than he already had for his out spoken views on medicine. Despite being cautioned not to publish his translation, Culpeper went ahead, believing that his life was not as important as the everyday man having the right and ability to have the knowledge to be able to heal himself. What Culpeper gave the common man was an exact translation of the “Pharmacopoeia Londonesis” with the addition of his own views and experiences of the uses and virtues of the remedies and formulas. The College of Physicians hit out at Culpeper saying that what he had in actual fact done with his translation was not to enable people to heal themselves, but rather create the “danger of poysoning men's bodies” because the common man didn’t know how to successfully prescribe and use medicines.
The College of Physicians arguments fell on death ears and Culpeper moved on to publish a second book in 1651, his ‘Semeiotica Uranica’, or ‘An Astrological Judgement of Diseases’ set out to show how the aspect of the heavens at the time of that a person became ill and took to their sick bed could be governed, diagnosed and treated using astrology. The year 1651 saw Culpeper publish a second book ‘A Directory for Midwives; or a Guide for women in their conception, bearing and suckling of their children, etc.’ which covered the topic of midwifery, which some would think odd for a man to write about, especially one of Culpeper’s vocation of astrologer and herbalist. But given that along with his young wife Alice they had 7 children, with only one of those children surviving him it is easy to see why he so enthusiastically tackled a subject that could help keep more children alive into adulthood.
The English Physician
In 1652 Culpeper published a translation from Latin of Galen’s esteemed work the ‘Art of Physic’ which focused on the four elements of Earth, Water, Air and Fire, each element being attributed a quality Earth being cold and dry, Water cold and moist, Air hot and moist, Fire being hot and dry. In the same year Culpeper also published ‘Catastrophe Magnatum’ or in English, the Fall of Monarchy, he also wrote and published a selection of articles on the downfall of the monarchy and other subjects, but for the purposes of this article I will stick to his herbal writings.Culpeper was extremely busy writing during 1652 and in early November he completed his book ‘The English Physitian, or an Astrologo-Physical Discourse of the Vulgar Herbs of this Nation’ which he is best known for, it was printed by Peter Cole at his printing press in Cornhill near the Royal Exchange. The original herbal was not illustrated and subsequent reprints did not carry illustrations until the late 18th century. Over the years there have been many reprints of Culpeper’s Herbal, I’m lucky to own a reprint from 1698 published by A and J Churchill printers of Pater-Noster Row, London. My 1698 copy has a different title, ‘The English Physician Enlarged; With Three Hundred Sixty and Nine Medicines Made of English Herbs, That were not in any Impression until This.’ In both the original and 1698 editions Culpeper is referred to as “Nich. Culpeper, Gent, Student in Physick and Astrology”.
In all honesty I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Culpeper, when I first got in to the world of herbs, it was one of the first herbals I acquired albeit a reprinted version from the 1980’s, as I delved more in to the world of herbs and discovered herbals, Culpeper became tarnished because he clearly used the works of Dioscorides, Gerard, Turner, Parkinson and others to put his herbal together, adding astrological slants to make those works more his own. So much so, I had rather unjustly fitted him into the plagiarist box and begun to ignore his references. Looking in to the man for this article and discovering what he stood for, how he gave herbal knowledge to the common man and made that which was a secret to anyone that couldn’t read Latin coupled with the way he would treat patients for little to no fee in the poor area of Spitalfields where he lived and I guess on a personal level for his anti-royalist ways, has me looking at Nich Culpeper in a whole new light! His herbal retailed at 3 pennies, making them more affordable to the masses, whilst books like Parkinson’s ‘Theatrum Botanicum’ cost a lot more.
The ‘English Physician Enlarged’ began with Amara Dulcis the Latin name for Bittersweet and ended with Yarrow, each herb had a description, the place it could be found growing, the time of year it could be found and its Government – by its astrological association and its virtues. As well as information on the herbs, Culpeper included information on gathering different plant parts, and preserving them, and also how to make a variety of herbal preparations including: - Compounds, Distilled Waters, Syrups, Juleps, Decoctions, Oils, Electuaries, Conserves, Preserves, Lohochs [a medicine which had a consistence somewhere between a soft electuary and a syrup], Ointments, Plaisters, Pultisses [Poultices], Troches [a lozenge, flat cake or tablet, made from a stiff paste usually of the herb, sugar and some form of mucilage, cut into portions and dried] and Pills. The final chapter gave a table of diseases listed alphabetically and listed the pages that herbs could be found to treat said disease, the contents of the 1652 English Physician are important to note as will be explained below.
In the winter of 1653 Culpeper began to suffer badly from consumption, given all the remedies you find in his book for herbs that help suffers of consumption you would have expected Culpeper to recover. Alas it wasn’t to be, having never recovered from the gunshot wound he’d taken to the chest during the Siege of Reading, the wound apparently constantly troubled him from 1646 until his death. That, and the fact that Culpeper worked himself ragged tending to the sick, dealing with the loss of 6 of his 7 children during his 14 year marriage. Studying and writing his books, battling against the medical establishment which he believed to be self-serving and monetarist, finally took its toll, ravaging Culpeper to look like a skeleton towards the end.
Nicholas Culpeper worked himself to death and into the ranks of the historical English herbalists on the 10th January 1654, dying at his home on Red Lion Street, Spitalfields, London, at the young age of 38. He was buried in the newly established graveyard of Bethlehem Hospital, later to be known as the notorious Bedlam Asylum. After Culpeper’s death a series of events occurred which put words into Culpeper’s mouth and books, as if he’d continued to write from beyond the grave! The 3rd and final part to follow.
Debs Cook is the IT Media Manager for the DHM, she is a self confessed herbaholic who loves to write about the way herbs were once used and about the herbalists that used them. You can find out more about Debs over on her Herbal haven blog.
