#antiquarian

This book caught my attention a few weeks ago: it was on display in the window of an antiquarian bookshop in Dresden and I swore to myself, to return and I’d buy it. So I did.

The book is from 1926, published by Schwarzeck-Verlag Dresden. It contains information and references to herbals from the 15th century, which – thanks to the invention of letterpress printing – were for the first time available to a larger audience, especially since they were written not in Latin but in German language, so that common people could understand and use them. These herbals were richly illustrated with surprisingly accurate woodcuts depicting the plants. Both pharmacology and botany developed quickly during this time. Soon followed similar herbals in Belgium, Italy and England.

The first chapter gives an introduction to these early herbals of the “Middle Ages” and their authors, such as Conrad von Megenberg, Otto Brunfels, Leonhart Fuchs, Hieronymus Bock, Petrus Andreas Mathiolus, Konrad Gesner, Tabernaemontanus etc., as well as illustrators, who designed extraordinary woodcuts for these books and publishers. Guess what, it wasn’t easy to publish a book at a time when there were no laws yet on coyprights so that reprints occured still within the same year and neither the original publisher nor author could do anything about it. To this add competition and price dumping amongst publishers once a larger number of similar books was available… Wait, that all sounds familiar doesn’t it? Even today… The authors describe all of this quite vividly and so this short discurse on the first herbals ever printed is a pleasant read, spiced with examples and quotes from these very first books on plants and their alleged medicinal properties. Simultaneously we learn how the first volumes on botany and pharmacognosy came into being.

As I cannot go into detail on each chapter I will instead just list the titles for reference:

1. The Herbals of the Middle Ages
2. The Doctrine of Signatures
3. The art of distillation
4. The spice wars
5. The cultivation of drugs in Germany
6. The China-Bark
7. The Liquorice
8. The tropein-containing Nightshades
9. The Strophanthus
10. The noxious and innoxious types of Strychnos
11. The Elder
12. The Indian Hemp (Cannabis indica)
13. The Yohimbe bark
14. The Guajacum tree
15. The Sarsaparilla root
16. The Shepherd’s Purse
17. The Rhubarb
18. The Aconite
19. The Opium
20. The Cantharides

I have not read through all of the 272 pages but whenever I skim over the text I find something new and interesting, which I have not read elsewhere. This book contains plenty of interdisciplinary references and I am glad to have bought it.