Comments on: Nicholas Culpeper, Herbalist Of Spitalfields

By: Emmie Pollard

Emmie Pollard — Thu, 19 Nov 2020 15:12:39 +0000

What a delightful piece “humanising” Culpeper. Interesting times and oontemperaries.

By: Kelly Holman

Kelly Holman — Sat, 02 May 2020 09:40:35 +0000

Another fascinating piece.

I found Spitalfields Life while doing some research on the fur trade and have become a regular reader. Every day brings a new delight although the recent stories of local residents who have died from the Covid 19 virus bring tears. They are told so beautifully by you, Gentle Author, that the loss feels personal.

The story of Culpeper is fascinating. It would be wonderful also to discover the stories of the formidable herbalist from Dalston Junction and the Hoopers.

By: Sarah Catterall

Sarah Catterall — Thu, 30 Apr 2020 16:06:18 +0000

My ancestors were Apothecary Surgeons and lived in Red Lion Court Spitalfields . There name was Hooper and famous for Hoopers Pills of Reading. They we’re also accouchers Male Midwives I like to think they worked with Culpepper and not against him

By: paul loften

paul loften — Thu, 30 Apr 2020 15:17:17 +0000

This article perhaps gives us an understanding of the roots of herbalism ( no pun intended). At a time when conventional medicine was perhaps a less appealing option to a population that suffered from serious maladies to which there was no honest remedy. After all many pharmaceutical drugs and anesthetics used today contain the ingredients plants and herbs that have been enhanced by the advances made in chemistry.
When I was a boy my mother who suffered from migraines, sent me by taking the 149 bus from Stoke Newington to a tiny herbalist shop at Dalston Junction. She would swear by them when she had an attack. The shop was so small only one person could go in at a time. It was dark and foreboding with jars of herbs displayed in the windows and on the shelves behind the counter. It took courage to enter as behind the counter stood a tall, formidable woman with iron-grey hair sometimes tied in a bun. She was a herbalist of great experience and when i summoned the courage to tell her about my mother’s migraine her stern appearance would melt into the kindest of people. She was a lovely woman. One day she sent me there and the shop had closed and there was a notice on the door saying she had died suddenly and I went back to my mother without the herbs and reported the news to her. On hearing this she was beside herself, she knew her to be a woman of great learning and kindness

By: Poyntz Pauline

Poyntz Pauline — Thu, 30 Apr 2020 11:28:04 +0000

I have never been so excited to read , and to look at the photographs of any of the blogs as I am of today’s , and I have been thoroughly enjoying many for a long time.
As a child my favourite pastime was collecting wild flowers and identifying them, pressing them between the pages of the heaviest books I could find lying around the house.
I love to remember my joy at creating my little treasured collection forgotten until I saw these photos.
Thank you for reminding me.

By: sprite

sprite — Thu, 30 Apr 2020 11:25:15 +0000

such an interesting read at this time; I’ve been following from afar the big controversy in France about the use of hydroxychloroquine+azithromycin in which the political versus ethical values would be mind boggling, if I had not experienced similar battles right at the onset of HIV/AIDS at the front line at the very beginning of ‘that’ pandemic.

And to read in this article of the similar battles led by Culpepper a few centuries ago is strangely disquietingly comforting. Specially about his translation in lay language from mystifying latin books. The more it changes the more it remains the same.

elevated pyrexia –
I reassure the patient
that his high temperature
is under control

By: Pauline Taylor

Pauline Taylor — Thu, 30 Apr 2020 11:02:29 +0000

Fascinating and very enjoyable reading but I feel I must defend William Gilberd (1544 – 1603) who, although he was by profession a physician, would, I am sure, have investigated the properties of all the medicines that he used to treat his patients. He ended his career as physician to Queen Elizabeth I it is true, but he had an extraordinary inquiring mind and refused to accept the thinking of the day without proof. He was at the forefront of experimental physics thus proving that the earth is a giant magnet and is responsible for the word electricity. He rubbed a piece of amber on silk thus creating enough static to pick up pieces of straw etc. and, because the Greek word for amber is electron, he called that effect electric. I am sure that he would have been equally inquisitive about the properties of plants and herbs especially as to their efficacy when used to treat illnesses.

I am in awe of Nicholas Culpeper but please let us not forget that at least one early physician would not have been so careless about his patient’s lives. I admit that I am prejudiced as, if it was not for the lockdown I should, at this moment, be sitting at my desk in the building in which William Gilberd was born in Colchester. We, my son and I, are very proud of Dr Gilberd and plan to have a cabinet of minerals in our shop in which we will display a collection of minerals in his honour as he had the first cabinet of minerals in this country, which he mentioned in his will of 1603 together with his spheres and his books. We assume that he investigated the properties of minerals which could be used in medicine so he surely would have done the same with regard to herbs. These were two like minds on this subject I suspect and we should remember them both with respect and awe. Thank you GA for reminding me of that on a rather damp chilly morning on which I am really missing being able to go to work !!

By: Helen Breen

Helen Breen — Thu, 30 Apr 2020 10:50:40 +0000

Greetings from Boston,

GA, wow, that’s a handsome plaque honoring Nicholas Culpeper’s life and work. How many other Spitalfields residents have been so honored? No doubt, each would make an interesting story.

Nice work, Patricia. Thanks

By: Mathilde Grange

Mathilde Grange — Thu, 30 Apr 2020 10:33:22 +0000

Marvelous.

By: Chris Webb

Chris Webb — Thu, 30 Apr 2020 10:26:29 +0000

“no man deserved to starve to pay an insulting, insolent physician.” Not a view held in all corners of the world even today.

While reading this I was thinking “he deserves a blue plaque”. Scrolled down and lo and behold . . . It looks a bit purple to me though, is that just my monitor?

The colour plates are beautiful aren’t they? As so often happens with images on this site I would like prints to frame.