Nicholas Culpeper Part 3 - Culpeper's Last Legacy

Photo and Article ⓒ Debs Cook

Shortly after Culpeper’s death Alice Culpeper remarried the astrologer John Heyden who Culpeper knew when they were both members of the Society of Astrologers, and according to Benjamin Woolley in his book 'The Herbalist', Heyden was actually living in Culpeper’s house prior to Culpeper’s demise. Woolley seems to think that Alice and Nicholas became estranged, and uses the odd entry on Wormwood found in older editions of the ‘English Physician’ to present a man bitter towards his wife, and the wife accusing Culpeper of abuse. What the truth is one can only speculate, however after Culpeper died, Alice seems to have done her best to cash in on her late husband’s previous works and reputation, and claimed that he had left behind over 70 books or manuscripts that he had left for her to publish.

Alice joined forces with Heyden and a Dr. Freeman to sell an alchemical potion called ‘Aurum Potabile’ a remedy in the 17th century that was believed to be a universal remedy for all diseases, the remedy was made from a herbal suspension in which trace amounts of gold were added. In a hand bill that was circulated around London, it was claimed by camp Alice that Culpeper and Dr. Freeman had discovered the wonders of this remedy during his studies and she gave Culpeper the title of Dr. Culpeper, the first time he was known as Nicholas Culpeper M.D. he never referred to himself as such, one feels he would have been turning in his grave being labelled as part of the establishment he fought against all his life.

Keeping a monopoly of the Culpeper ‘brand’ was of the utmost importance and to do this, Alice teamed up with Culpeper’s publisher Peter Cole who had already begun printing books that he claimed were penned by Culpeper, including translations of seven European herbals from the 16th century written in Latin. Cole offered to help Alice promote her cure-all potion in exchange for her endorsement on the works he published in Culpeper’s name.

By 1655 just 1 year after Culpeper’s death, Alice’s monopoly began to waiver, another publisher of Culpeper’s work, a Nathaniel Brooke published a book called 'Culpeper’s Last Legacy', which he claimed had been written by Culpeper and left for his wife to publish. To add insult to injury, Brooke published a letter akin to an endorsement allegedly written by Alice which stated that “the copy of what is here printed… was delivered to my trust among [Nicholas’s] choicest secrets upon his death bed.” Alice vehemently denied that she had written the letter published and denied that the book was written by Culpeper. So much so several months after the Last Legacy was published, Alice published a pamphlet entitled ‘Mr Culpeper’s Treatise of Aurum Potabile’ which began with an assault on Brooke, accusing him of publishing “a hodge-podge of ingested collections and observations.”

Her pamphlet echoed previous claims that Culpeper had left “seventy-nine books of ‘his own making, or translating, in my hands” adding that there were also another 17 completed works that were ready to be published and would be published exclusively by herself and Culpeper’s “much honoured friend”, referring to Peter Cole. The rest of the pamphlet was a travesty, Culpeper in his lifetime had poured scorn and ridicule on charlatan’s who promoted cure-alls like aurum potabile, so promoting such a cure made no sense at all. The pamphlet is not written in Culpeper’s style nor did it match his medical beliefs. What happened next is of little consequence to this article on the life of Culpeper, so I’ll move on.

Suffice to say, and remember I said earlier that the contents of the 1652 edition of ‘The English Physician’ were important? After Brooke published his work it became open season for a good selection of people to cash in on Culpeper’s name by publishing books that became known as 'Culpeper’s Complete Herbal', my 1698 edition is the same as the 1652 edition, nothing added and nothing taken away and still known as 'The English Physician'. It wasn’t until around 1789 that editions of the ‘Complete Herbal’ began to appear with coloured plates when Ebenezer Sibly published his version of Brooke’s and Culpeper’s works across 2 volumes, adding his own words and additional herbs and including the coloured plates, as well as Medical references and illustrations.

1814 saw the publication of "Culpeper’s Complete Herbal, to which is now added, upwards of one hundred additional herbs, with a display of their Medicinal and Occult Qualities; physically applied to the cure of all disorders incident to mankind: to which are now first annexed, the English physician enlarged, and key to physic, with rules for compounding medicine according to the true system of nature. Forming a complete family dispensatory, and natural system of physic. To which is also added upwards of fifty choice receipts [recipes], selected from the author's last legacy to his wife. Embellished with engravings of upwards of four hundred different plants with other subjects to illustrate the work.” By Richard Evan’s of White Row, Spitalfields. Evans version was attributed to Culpeper, the only part of the book that is Culpeper’s is all that was in ‘The English Physician’, the rest is from Nathaniel Brooke’s 'Culpeper’s Last Legacy'.

The 1826 edition published by J. Gleave and Son of Deansgate in Manchester was different, the listing for herbs started with Agrimony an herb that doesn’t even feature in the original ‘English Physician’, after yarrow, yew and yucca were also included, and again neither featured in Culpeper’s original book. In 1835 Thomas Kelly publishers issued a reprint of the Complete Herbal which like the 1814 edition is Brooke’s work and not all Culpeper’s, Kelly’s edition followed the Brooke’s edition using herbs from Amara Dulcis to Yarrow, the extra herbs were listed in the back albeit briefly.

Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries Brooke’s book has been republished and always attributed to Culpeper, all of them containing only his original book 'The English Physician', although I believe that Silby referenced Culpeper’s ‘A Directory for Midwives’ and Brooke’s dipped in to Culpeper’s translation of the 'Pharmacopoeia Londonesis' for the remedies he published. If the reader wants to see examples of cures and remedies that Culpeper recommended they would be best suited finding a copy of 'Pharmacopoeia Londonesis' rather than modern day versions of what Culpeper was supposed to have written!

I started out this three part article as I said earlier with a different view of Nicholas Culpeper than I have now, from considering him nothing more than a plagiarist to discovering he was not only plagiarised, but also had words and entire books attributed to him that he never wrote, as well as having things published that totally went against his beliefs so that others could benefit from his name. With more time a more rounded story could be told of this man, and I intend to revisit 'The English Physician' in the future as well as take a closer look at the remedies in 'Pharmacopoeia Londonesis' and what Culpeper had to say about the College of Physicians. For now I will bring this missive on Culpeper to a close gentle reader and trust that you have learnt something new, and maybe like me now see Culpeper in a new light?

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.

Nicholas Culpeper Part 2 - The English Physician

Photo and Article Ⓒ Debs Cook

In part 1 of our look at the life of Nicholas Culpeper we left him joining the Parliamentarians at the Battle of Edgehill in October 1642, he served under the command of the Earl of Sussex during the first English Civil War (1642-1646) although not as a soldier. When Culpeper went to enlist he was told that his services were not needed as a soldier, but his medical skills were badly needed, so he joined as a field surgeon to tend the wounded Roundhead soldiers. In preparation Culpeper spent time studying his medical texts before he left for the battlefield, ensuring his surgical knowledge was battle ready, and spent time collecting a wealth of medicinal herbs and plants from the wild, which he took with him to the battle fields to help treat the wounded.

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.

Nicholas Culpeper Part 1 - A Young Rebel

Article and Photo © Debs Cook

As 17th century England mourned the death of herbalist and author John Gerard in 1612, four years later a would be herbalist set to take on the Society of Apothecaries and champion the rights of the common man to be able to heal their own ills was born on the 18th October 1616.

Culpeper is often the first herbalist thought of when the 17th century is mentioned, and almost every herbal person I know owns a copy of what is considered his greatest work, the ‘English Physician’ in one form or another. Modern day herbalists still make use of many of the herbs Culpeper wrote about in his ‘English Physician and Complete Herbal’ for the same uses that Culpeper put them to and to a large extent the way Culpeper made his infusions, decoctions, ointments and poultices is the way this preparations are still made today.

Born in the village of Ockley in Surrey, his father Rev. Nicholas Culpeper, had been presented only a few months before with the living of Ockley by his family, but died at the age of 36 on the 5th October 1616 just 13 days before the birth of his only son. Shortly after his father’s death, baby Nicholas and his mother Mary were moved to live with her father, the Rev. William Attersole, a stern puritan minister of St. Margaret's church in Isfield, East Sussex. It was his grandfather that taught the young Nicholas how to read Greek and Latin, and via a collection of clocks kept by his father, Nicholas became interested in time which undoubtedly led to his interest in astrology, his grandfather also sowed the seeds of the anti-royalist that Culpeper would become as he grew up.

It was his maternal Grandmother who gave Nicholas a taste for herbs and medicinal plants, at 10 he perused his Grandmother’s copy of William Turner's ‘New Herball’ first published in 1568, and was fascinated by the illustrations of the plants. His grandmother also owned a copy of ‘Gerard’s Herbal’ which the young Culpeper read enthusiastically, taking what he read along with the knowledge given to him by his grandmother to discover the wild herbs growing around Sussex. His grandfather was not happy to let Nicholas have free reign to read anything he desired and when Nicholas was 13 he forbade him to read anything but the bible. Nicholas being the rebel that he was, is known to have taken books out of his Grandfather’s library to read elsewhere, one such book was ‘Anatomy of Man's Body’ by Thomas Vicary, who was the barber-surgeon to king Henry VIII, from this book we can surmise that young Culpeper became fascinated by the descriptions of the sexual organs and human reproduction which eventually influenced his book ‘Directory for Midwives’, published in 1651.

At the age of 16, Culpeper was sent away to Cambridge University to study theology, his grandparents had decided it was time that Nicholas followed in his father and grandfathers footsteps and become a minister. Young master Nicholas had other ideas, and he began to supplement his study of the classics, and thus broadening his education by attending lectures on anatomy and the ‘Materia Medica’ of Galen and Hippocrates.

Whilst at Cambridge, Culpeper, met and fell in love with Judith Rivers a well to do heiress, the feeling was mutual but the couple knew that Judith’s family would never agree to the pair being married, so they decided to run away together in the summer of 1634. They were due to meet at a Tavern in Lewes, Culpeper got there first and waited, but Judith never arrived, some tales say there was a storm and that Judith was so terrified she died of fright. The truth is that on the way to meet Culpeper, the coach she travelled in was struck by lightening and she was killed instantly.

Judith’s death had a profound effect on Culpeper, who by all accounts already hated his theological studies and was becoming increasingly frustrated that he couldn’t study to be a doctor. When Judith died, Culpeper, in deep shock, was taken back home to his mother in Isfield, she nursed him back to health. When he was fully recovered Culpeper refused to go back to Cambridge to resume his theological studies and was subsequently cut off by his Grandfather, losing his only means of financial support, and was forbidden to see his mother, as a result of being deprived interaction with her son, Mary Culpeper sunk in to a deep depression and died when Nicholas was 23, she was 54 years of age.

Having to make his own way after being disinherited by the Culpeper’s, Nicholas decided that if he couldn’t go to University to study to be a physician, he would become an apothecary instead and was apprenticed to a Mr. White who ran an apothecary shop in Temple Bar, London. Just 18 months after his apprenticeship began, Mr White went bankrupt and fled England for Ireland and the business closed, forcing Nicholas to seek another employer. He was successful and shortly after he became apprenticed to the apothecary Francis Drake, who owned a shop in Threadneedle Street, Bishopsgate. Having no means to pay for his apprenticeship, Culpeper is known to have struck a bargain with Drake to teach him Latin in exchange for Drake teaching him all he knew about the apothecary trade.

Culpeper joined Drake’s other apprentice, a Samuel Leadbetter and the two became firm friends, part of the training that Drake gave Culpeper included accompanying Thomas Johnson - the man who would later in Culpeper’s lifetime edit and enlarge Gerard’s Herbal in 1633 - on walks to identify and collect local herbs to be used to make remedies in Drake’s apothecary shop.

Culpeper proved to be a willing, able and dedicated student, learning all that he needed about Materia Medica and the apothecary practice and when Drake died in 1639, Leadbetter continued his training until 1640 when he became a fully licensed apothecary and took over the running of Drake’s shop. Culpeper was sent to train with Mr. Higgins, a warden of the Society of Apothecaries, but never finished his apprenticeship instead he joined Leadbetter running the shop of their old master. The two worked together until sometime in 1644, Culpeper had begun to treat patients and was in effect practising as an unlicenced physician, Leadbetter received two warnings from the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries, and the final warning instructed him “not to employ Culpeper in the making or administering of any medicine who promised to obey the same”, so Leadbetter decided to terminate Culpeper from his employ.

Back to 1640 and Culpeper met another heiress named Alice Field whilst treating her father for  gouty arthritis, he then married her, he was 24 and she just 15 years of age and had inherited a rather sizeable fortune, at the time apothecary apprentices were forbidden to marry, so this action angered the Society of Apothecaries and prevented him from being able to complete his training. He made many enemies amongst the Society of Apothecaries and the College of Physicians over the years, so much so, in December of 1642 Culpeper was imprisoned and tried for practising witchcraft, an offence punishable by death in the mid-17th century. To Culpeper’s great relief he was found not guilty and acquitted of all charges.

Using the money he acquired by marrying Alice, Culpeper built a house in Spitalfields on Red Lion Street, and being outside of the City of London, Culpeper wasn’t governed by the rules set out by the College of Physicians, although his practice was only semi-legal, Culpeper became a sought after herbalist and astrologer and is said to have treated as many as 40 patients a day. By now Culpeper was getting a reputation as an outspoken atheist and he also began to display anti-royalist tendencies publicly and in 1642 he joined in the civil war fighting for the Parliamentarians at the battle of Edgehill. Part 2 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.