Pliny tells that serpents eat fennel when they cast their skins, to sharpen their sight, whence its long use for the eyes. Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/fennel 🗃️ #history #SuperstitionSat

Culpeper says the red rose strengthens the heart, stomach, and liver, and that the conserve of red roses “is a very good cordial” against faintness and the consumption. Red roses (Rosa gallica), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/red-roses #history #SuperstitionSat

Matthew 13:31: The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, the least of all seeds, that becomes a tree. Mustard seed (Brassica napus), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/mustard-seed 🗃️ #history #SuperstitionSat

This is why I like writing the Materia Medica: Herodotus tells that the Arabians burned storax to drive off the winged serpents that guarded the frankincense trees. Storax calamite (Styrax officinalis), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/storax-calamite #history #histsci

One from the Materia Medica I keep coming back to. Melissa is the Greek for honeybee: the plant was grown for the hives. Balm (Melissa officinalis), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/balm 🗃️ #history #histsci

From § 37: “The presentiment-dreams are the summit of the dream-life.” Karl Albert Scherner, 1861, in Discoveries in the Realm of the Soul, from the press. thethinkingpress.org/project/life-of-the-dream 💙📚 💡📚 #c19th

Cesare della Riviera, 1605: “in the East you will find the gate” to the Cave of Mercury, and by the East, after Trithemius, not where the Sun rises each day, “but that place in which he was created at the beginning.” thethinkingpress.org/translations/magical-world-of-the-heroes/excerpts 🗃️ 💙📚

Pliny: “Arabia produces neither cinnamon nor cassia; and this is the country styled Happy Arabia!” Cassia wood (Cinnamomum aromaticum), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/cassia-wood 🗃️ #history #histsci

Dioscorides says the root of the melon, dried and given in honeyed water, provokes vomiting, two drams of it, and that it is milder than the white hellebore; Pliny repeats him. Melon root (Cucumis melo), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/melon-root #history #histsci

Justinus Kerner on one of his ink blots: “My picture too came out of the black inkwell. When I saw it, I went pale as a corpse.” All 42 pictures of his Kleksographs (1890) are now free to see, each with his words beside it: thethinkingpress.org/translations/kleksographs/pictures#p055 🗃️ 💙📚

In the Middle Ages the cut flower-stalks, the clove-wood, were traded too, for a cheap powder that adulterated the true one, and the fallen petals were sold as capelletti, little hats. Clove, in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/clove 🗃️ #history #histsci

Folkard keeps the biblical aloes, the fragrant wood, apart from the bitter drug: “All thy garments smell of Myrrh, and Aloes, and Cassia,” and the spice Nicodemus brought “to embalm the body of our Lord.” Aloe, in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/aloe #history #folklore

Spent a while on mugwort today. The Old English charm names mugwort the first and eldest of the nine herbs, and bids it remember what it made known. Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/mugwort 🗃️ #history #histsci

Pliny tells how Cleopatra won a wager with Antony by dissolving a great pearl in vinegar and drinking it. Pearls, prepared, in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/pearls-prepared #history #histsci

This is why I like writing the Materia Medica: “Sell your coat and buy betony,” ran an Italian proverb; it was planted in churchyards and worn against evil spirits. Betony (Betonica officinalis), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/betony 🗃️ #history #histsci

One from the Materia Medica I keep coming back to. Thiselton-Dyer records that “the germander is known as horse-chere, from its growing after horse-droppings.” Water germander (Teucrium scordium), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/water-germander #history #histsci

Homer: In the Iliad, Paeeon, physician of the gods, heals Hades of an arrow wound “by spreading soothing herbs on the wound,” and Ares likewise with “pain-killing herbs.” Peony (Paeonia officinalis), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/peony 🗃️ #history #histsci

I did not expect this when I wrote up rhubarb: Dioscorides calls it rha, the root from beyond the Bosporus, a name taken from the river Rha, the Volga, along which it came. Rhubarb (Rheum officinale), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/rhubarb #history #histsci

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Shakespeare made it a funeral flower for youth, and in Folkard’s own day it had become the emblem of Lord Beaconsfield and the Primrose League. Primrose (Primula vulgaris), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/primrose 🗃️ #history #histsci

The poppy belonged to Hypnos and Morpheus, sleep and dreams; some have seen Homer’s nepenthe in it. Opium poppy (Papaver somniferum), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/opium-poppy #history #histsci

Gerard says it “quickneth the senses and memorie, strengthneth the sinewes, restoreth health to those that haue the palsie vpon a moist cause.” Sage (Salvia officinalis), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/sage 🗃️ #history #histsci

Folkard: “This aromatic Reed, or Sweet Flag, is absurdly said to have been called Acorus, from the Greek koré, pupil, because it was esteemed good for diseases of the eye.” Sweet flag (Acorus calamus), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/sweet-flag #history #histsci

Dioscorides describes melanthion as a little shrub with a poppy-like head full of black, sweet-smelling seed that was sprinkled on loaves. Black seed (Nigella sativa), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/black-seed #history #histsci

One from the Materia Medica I keep coming back to. Paracelsus: Salt was the third of his principles, with sulfur and mercury: the principle of fixity and body. Salt, in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/salt 🗃️ #history #folklore

Pliny gives polium “beaten up with wild rue in rain water” to assuage the pain of the sting of the asp. Wild rue (Ruta graveolens), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/wild-rue #history #histsci

The name preserves an old tradition: oakmoss powder scented as poudre de Chypre was in use by the sixteenth century, long before the modern chypre perfumes. Cyprus powder, in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/cyprus-powder 🗃️ #history #histsci

Reading the old authorities on mandrake again. Dioscorides gives a wine of the root to bring sleep and to deaden pain before cutting or burning in surgery. Mandrake (Mandragora officinarum), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/mandrake #history #histsci

Pliny repeats the fable that the red cinnabaris was the mingled blood of a dragon and an elephant slain in their combat. Dragon’s blood (Dracaena cinnabari), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/dragons-blood 🗃️ #history #histsci

Mesue’s anacardine electuary was good for those who wished to be learned, for it sharpened the intellect and made a good memory. Marking-nut electuary (Semecarpus anacardium), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/marking-nut-electuary #history #FolkloreThursday