HERB - Ointment, Balm, Salve Recipes??
Gaylin Walli
gwalli at infoengine.com
Mon May 1 12:14:16 PDT 2000
As promised, here is my partial bibliography on balms and ointments
for the class I taught at the Midrealm's Pentamere Regional RUM.
All of these books have particular pros and cons wrt the making
of balms and ointments, but all are very useful. Culpepper is out
of period, technically, but procedurally has some really great
instructions that may bridge the gap for people between period
recipes and older modern ones in the American corpus. I hope
this helps. FWIW, Gerard is my favorite in terms of finding
period balms recipes. Oh yes, one more thing. These are only the
*period/near period* books I used. -- Jasmine, Iasmin de Cordoba
Culpepper, Nicholas. Culpepper's Complete Herbal and English Physician.
(no editor, online and facsimile edition). Publisher: J. Gleave and Son,
Deansgate, Manchester England. 1685/1826. Also available online in
the Peter Cole published original at these locations:
http://www.med.yale.edu/library/historical/culpeper/culpeper.htm
http://www.bibliomania.com/NonFiction/Culpeper/Herbal/
Culpepper's book of medicine was first published in 1652. Included
with the descriptions of herbs and their uses is a section on the
temperaments of herbs and the directions for making various
substances, but especially ointments.
Gerard, John.Gerard's Herball (Thomas Johnson, Ed.). Publisher: Dover.
ISBN: 048623147X. c.1597/1633.
Gerard's Herball was first published in 1597. I used the 1633
facsimile edition which was corrected and added to by Thomas
Johnson (he added nearly 800 plants and descriptive information
as well as roughly 700 new illustrations). An excellent and complete
edition for any researcher to own, though the cost is prohibitive.
Readers would be well-advised to remember Johnson's additions to the
work and read the text accordingly, looking specifically for Gerard's
originals.
Markham, Gervase. The English Housewife. (Michael R. Best, Ed.)
Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press. ISBN: 0773505822.
1615/1986.
The English Housewife was published in 1615 as book two of the
two-part Country Contentments, with the first book being called
The Husbandmans Recreations. Best's edition was based on the
1633 edition with corrections for the 1615, 1623, 1638, and
1658 editions as appropriate. Markham's work is that of a copyist.
His text is based on Bancke's Herbal, A Treasury of Healthe, A Book
of Soveraigne Approved Medicines and Remedies, and Arcana Fair
faxiana, among others. Excellent edition for the price, with thorough
and scholarly editing. Unfortunately, this is not a facsimile copy and
the text and spelling has been normalized throughout the work.
della Porta, Giambattista. Magiae naturalis [Natural Magick]. 1558/1584.
Available on the World Wide Web from
http://www2.tscnet.com/pages/omard1/jportat5.html
This work edition is a translation done by Porta himself and placed
online by Major Scott L. Davis (US Army, Retired). Of specific interest
to the researcher will be Porta's eighth and ninth books of this 20-book
compilation, which are labeled "Of Physical Experiments" and "Of
Beautifying Women." Printed facsimile copies are extremely expensive,
even for a modern edition, ranging in price from $150-300 (US$).
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