OK, so I was reading Culpepper’s Complete Herbal… for fun (I know, pretty nerdy 🙂 and I thought I would pass along some of his words of wisdom.  (Or at least those things that got me laughing out loud and confirmed to my husband that I am truly a complete herb geek!)

For those of you who haven’t heard of Culpepper, he was a 17th century physician, herbalist, and astrologer…

In his description about Angelica (Angelica archangelica), he says:
“In time of heathenism, when men had found out any excellent herb, they dedicated it to their god, as the baytree to Apollo, the oak to Jupiter, the vine to Bacchus, the poplar to Hercules.  These the papists following as the patriarchs, they dedicated to their saints; as our lady’s thistle to the Blessed Virgin, At. John’s wort to St. John, and another wort to St. Peter, etc… Our physicians must imitate like apes, though they cannot come off half so cleverly, for they blasphemously call tansies, or heart’s ease, an herb for the Trinity, because it is of three colours; and a certain ointment an ointment of the Apostles, because it consists of twelve ingredients.  Alas!  I am sorry for their folly, and grieved at their blasphemy.  God send them wisdom the rest f their age, for they have their share off ignorance already.  Oh!  Why must ours be blasphemous, because the heathens and papists were idolatrous?  certainly they have read so much in old rusty authors, that they have lost all their divinity, for unless it were amongst the ranters, I never read or heard of such blasphemy.  The heathens and papists were bad, and ours worse; the papists giving names to herbs for their virtue’s sake, not for their fair looks…”

What a funny little man!!I love that he rants about how the herbs are named in his book!

Here’s another one:
“it is called Carduus Benedictus, or Blessed Thistle, or Holy Thistle.  I suppose the name was put upon it by some that had little holiness in themselves”

And of Wild Clary (Salvia horminum) he says:
“Wild clary is most blasphemously called Christ’s eye, because it cures diseases of the eye.  I could wish from my soul that blasphemy, ignorance, and tyranny were ceased among physicians, that they might be happy and I joyful.”

I found this interesting!
Here’s what he says about the Government and Virtues of Burdock:
“Venus challengeth this herb for her own:  and by its leaf or seed you may draw the womb which way you please, either upward by applying it to the crown of the head in case it falls out; or downwards in fits of the mother, by applying it to the soles of the feet:  or if you would stay it in its place, apply it to the navel, and that is one good way to stay the child in it.”

Ok, that’s it for my 17th century herbal education…