HEAL THYSELF: NICHOLAS CULPEPER AND THE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY STRUGGLE TO BRING MEDICINE TO THE PEOPLE
- From: rpautrey2 <rpautrey2@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 14:03:53 -0800 (PST)
HEAL THYSELF: NICHOLAS CULPEPER AND THE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY STRUGGLE
TO BRING MEDICINE TO THE PEOPLE.
by Peter Morrell
Heal Thyself: Nicholas Culpeper and the Seventeenth-Century Struggle
to Bring Medicine to the People
by Benjamin Woolley, published UK Feb 2004,
Harper Collins, in USA and Canada July 2004, pages i-x, 402 pp
Although this book does not mention homeopathy and the events it
describes occurred in the 1600s, a century before Hahnemann was born;
nevertheless, it reveals a real struggle, a familiar pattern whenever
any vulnerable medical minority finds itself pitted against a
tyrannical medical monopoly. It is the story of a person who made the
College of Physicians in London look very foolish, and his laughter
somehow echoes enduringly even down to our own times. There is a
lesson to be learned from this story by all devotees of homeopathy and
natural medicine. It is also a pleasure to recommend a book that is
delightfully written, enriched by deeper themes and which vividly
brings to life a whole epoch of the past. This review showcases
comments from twelve prominent UK reviews of the book.
This book contains "frequent quotations from contemporary
documents," [2] written with "pace and panache." [1] It is "a gripping
assemblage of facts, figures and stories." [3] Woolley produces "a
lucid narrative," [5] an "immensely readable book," [6] adorned with
many "light, humorous touches." [6] Being more than a biography, it is
also "a profound examination of 17th-century trade practices and
monopolies." [6] It is "a fascinating historical treatise," [7]
"crammed with details of 17th-century life." [8] Woolley interweaves
"the careers of Harvey and Culpeper to make comparisons between
them," [8] detailing the "struggle between the two men and the
narrative is pacey and easy to absorb." [5] Culpeper is "brilliantly
brought to life." [12]
This "terrific story," [10] makes "such a compulsive read." [12] It is
"a wonderful book--a delight to read, fast-moving, informed and
passionate in its advocacy. It is a vivid and compelling portrait of
the world turned upside down." [12] It is "a remarkable and superbly
enjoyable history of the period," [2] not so much "a biography as a
very decent piece of 17th century history, with the emphasis on
medicine, religion and astrology, but with lashings of politics thrown
in."
Culpeper's life
Culpeper's "extraordinary life," [2] began when he was born "in 1616,
two weeks after the death of his father," [1] "the wayward child of a
family of clergymen and minor gentry." [10] The "son and grandson of
clergymen," [5] he "was reared by his maternal grandfather," [8] an
"unpopular and unaccommodating rector." [11] At the age of 16, he
"went up to Cambridge, where he learned some radical ideas," [8]
"acquired a legendary addiction to smoking tobacco," [3] and became
acquainted with a beauty he planned to marry. Tragically, "her coach
was struck by lightning," [1] on the way to meet him. Outraged by this
intriguing incident, his family disowned him and he was forced to
"abandon his education at Cambridge," [4] which he left "disgraced,
disinherited and in "deep melancholy," [11] and "his studies
incomplete." [1]
In 1634, aged 18, "Culpeper arrived in London with £50 in his pocket
and a tobacco habit, looking for an apprenticeship." [6] He soon began
"an apprenticeship to an apothecary, but abandoned that too in 1640,
and set up instead as a freelance astrologer and medical
practitioner," [1] "in St Mary Spital." [11] Though Culpeper "became
apprenticed to an apothecary," [3; 6] he did not complete, and was
therefore a "rogue apothecary." [10] Culpeper swiftly became "one of
London's best-known medical figures, showing a practical expertise
that the expensive and autocratic physicians often lacked," [9]
Culpeper was "a man with a long sad face, shoulder-length hair with a
fringe and an up-curling moustache." [3] A "natural rebel, he was
opposed to the doctors monopolising medical practice, to their great
profit, through the College of Physicians." [2] He "was unusually
disreputable, never qualifying properly and always trying to evade the
attempts of its legal practitioners to throw him out of London," [10]
He did tend to "revel in notoriety, indulging flamboyantly in booze
and the new drug of tobacco, passing through a succession of radical
religious sects." [10] He was "imprisoned at least twice, for both
medical and political infringements." [3] However, "his
popularity," [9] was obvious for he "attracted up to 40 patients a
day." [9] He was a "political radical, unqualified apothecary and self-
taught populist healer." [1] He died "possibly of lingering
complications from his civil-war chest-wound, on January 10 1654, at
the age of 37," [1] Poverty, exhaustion, and smoking had contributed
to his demise.
College of Physicians
Founded by Henry VIII in 1518, the "pompous and powerful College of
Physicians, whose members practised medicine as promulgated by Galen a
millennium and a half earlier," [3] regulated the work of physicians
and apothecaries in London. Their "only legal book of recipes for
medicines was the Pharmacopoeia Londoniensis." [3] Being "aloof and
expensive," [12] physicians "passed on the largely unquestioned dicta
of ancient authorities." [11] The "exclusive use of Latin by the
college," [2] helped it maintain "its grip on healing mysteries," [2]
for "all medical texts, were invariably published in Latin." [5]
Hence, all "official medical knowledge," [7] was closed to the
uneducated person; it was "printed and discussed only in Latin;" [7]
"all their procedures were in Latin," [3] By employing "the often
illegible, obfuscating style of doctors' prescriptions long remained
the norm," [3] so "doctors hung on to the secrets of their
profession." [12] This story concerns "the greed and paranoia of
professionals who wanted to keep knowledge to themselves," [7] so
protecting "medicaments for the sake of profit". [6] The obvious
"power of England's medical men is well described. The bitter rivalry
between the apothecaries, surgeons and physicians is very well teased
out." [8]
William Harvey
William Harvey occupied a pivotal position in 17th century English
medicine, being the head of the College of Physicians and thus
Culpeper's chief adversary. Woolley's villain is "William Harvey,
university-trained, trusted personal physician to King Charles I." [1]
His name is "permanently on the historical record, because he
discovered the circulation of the blood." [1] Harvey was "cold,
austere, pompous, efficient, politically and religiously conservative,
successful and respectable." [10] Culpeper, in contrast to Harvey,
"has been weeded out of the historical record," [1] according to
Woolley.
Harvey was a "pioneer of the scientific method and in every other way
a deep-dyed conservative." [5] His work was "weighty with lasting
influence;" [1] he had "charge of Charles I's children, Charles and
James, at the battle of Edgehill; he had a substantial apartment
within the royal palace at Whitehall." [1] Harvey continued to
"exercise considerable influence in medical circles through his senior
position in the College of Physicians." [1] He was clearly "an arch-
establishment figure, the court physician," [11] who "wielded
significant influence in medical and royal circles." [4] He certainly
"had the ear of Charles I." [4] Harvey indulged a "commitment to the
king and a divinely sanctioned separation between aristocracy and
commoners." [1] He was "a dyed-in-the-wool Royalist and a mainstay of
England's medical establishment." [8] As Woolley makes very clear, he
represented everything Culpeper detested.
Apothecaries
Apothecaries dispensed drugs and since medieval times had occupied a
position junior in prestige to physicians. Their job "was to make up
the prescriptions," [3] and most of them "had some idea of what their
medicines did." [6] However, they "also knew that the College of
Physicians had it in for them." [6] In essence, they treated the poor,
and "with their use of herbs and simples, they were medicine for
everyman." [12] Because of long-standing professional frictions
between physicians and apothecaries, "trade and turf wars seem to have
defined the medical system of the next 100 years." [6] During
epidemics, many doctors escaped London to reside in the country. For
example, "the plague of 1625 left London almost empty of doctors, with
only apothecaries still providing medical care." [6]
The Times
Woolley depicts the 1600s as an "era of revolutionary pamphlets," [11]
with a vibrant "intellectual underground," [10] and his sketches of
London reveal "a great city dissolving into chaos." [12] The country
"was gripped with terror. There was plague, famine, civil war." [4]
Such were times of "enormous turbulence, which were capped by the
execution of Charles I." [2] Culpeper "eagerly supported the
revolution that toppled Charles I and destroyed the English monarchy
in 1649," [10] the same year he published his Herbal. Woolley depicts
the "acrimonious, half-crazed, thrilling, terror-ridden sub-culture of
the city, when apprentices seethed against their masters," [11] with
widespread "fragmentation of public opinion." [3] Democracy was,
"creakingly, on the move, amid an incoherence of cults, sects and
superstitions." [5] Culpeper's medical struggles "paralleled wider
political divisions: King and Parliament, authority and conscience,
licensed doctor and unofficial healer." [5]
Culpeper "worked underground, in a world of religious sects, producing
pamphlets printed on clandestine printing presses and used his self-
taught medical knowledge in unlicensed apothecary shops," [4] shops
that were "anathema to the College of Physicians." [4] He "espoused
the radical politics which were the norm in London." [8] Under "the
eye of his widow, Culpeper's books became the height of medical
fashion. Pirated editions of his work flowed off printing presses
across England." [8] Thus "two connected revolutions are explored in
this book: one in the body politic, and one in the way our individual
bodies are treated." [3] England in general, and London especially,
seethed with political radicalism and religious dissent.
His Mission and legacy
As a committed republican, Culpeper despised "hierarchical, élite
medical practice for initiates only." [1] He thus decided to publish
"a translation into English of the college's Pharmacopoeia. The
physicians were outraged, especially as Culpeper also included
instructions on how to use the cures and sold the book at an
affordable price. His later publication, The English Physician
Enlarged, or the Herbal became another bestseller." [2] The book soon
became "one of the most enduring bestsellers of all time." [3]
Politically and professionally, it was "an act of defiance," [3] and
his own "great contribution to people-power." [3] For example, "his
preface, with its reference to 'The Liberty of the Subject', shows
that he understood the political resonance of what he had done." [3]
It clearly reveals Culpeper as a radical Puritan, "committed to
demystifying medicine for the ordinary man and woman." [4]
In essence, Culpeper was "a Latinist who rejected the elitism of that
tag." [5] Just "as Levellers called for all legal matters to be
conducted in English, so Culpeper's thoughts turned to a similar
democratisation of medical texts." [6] He therefore translated "the
semi-secret reference book Pharmacopeia Londiniensis into
English," [5] releasing it as "a cheap edition." [5] He "did in
medicine what the vernacular Bible had done in religion." [5]
Culpeper's practice and his published works were part of his
"conscious political struggle to bring medicine to the people,
rescuing it from the reactionary institutions which had hitherto
controlled its use." [1] His "well-intentioned popularising of
naturally occurring," [1] remedies was "one of many ad hoc attempts at
self-help," [1] His "egalitarian attitude towards medicine and his
commitment to making simple herbal remedies available to the public at
large were part and parcel of his political commitment to the
Commonwealth and its revolutionary principles," [1]
Culpeper 's "Compleat Herbal," [12] was "a groundbreaking
publication," [12] and became "one of the most popular and enduring
books in British history." [6] He regarded "kings, priests, lawyers
and licensed medics...all as the enemies of human welfare," [10] and he
reserved "his most ferocious attacks for doctors." [10] Having
"enraged the College of Physicians by giving away many of their
secrets," [7] Culpeper "prided himself on giving medical assistance to
anyone who came to his door." [12] Such bold radicalism made him
"feared by the physicians;" [4] his enemies even "called him
"Culpaper", the Arse-wipe." [5]
Remedies
The book discusses some of the "remedies for all the ills known to
17th-century society." [7] For example, "some thistles in wine which
expel 'superfluous Melancholy out of the Body, and make a man as merry
as a Cricket'..." [3] or "chamomile for a good night's sleep." [6] There
was "Pilewort...which readily cures both the Piles or the Haemorrhoids,
and the King's Evil, if I may lawfully call it the King's Evil now
that there is no King." [6] In official medicine there were "bizarre
items like excrement of wolf, human blood, crayfish eyes, sweat, ass
milk and "intestines of the earth" (earthworms)," [6] and "opium,
which, at the time, cost less than rhubarb." [6] By contrast, Culpeper
recommends "familiar hedgerow plants," [1] as gentle healers "if
picked under the right stars." [11]
Culpeper was espousing a "pick-your-own-and-dose-yourself guide to
free medicine for the masses," [11] familiar herbs which could be
picked "just a short walk from the city walls." [12] He was telling
"housewives how to treat ailments in the home," [4] using herbs which
were "readily available in the hedgerows." [4] Culpeper is full of "no-
nonsense advice that the good housewife could put to use in her own
family." [12] By thumbing his nose at medical authority, he was
effectively "giving short shrift to the expensive doctors." [4]
Alternative Medicine
There is little doubt that Culpeper is a hero-figure for "advocates of
alternative medicine today," [1] who believe that "Culpeper's remedies
retain their therapeutic usefulness." [1] He was also a pioneer of
"today's ever-simmering argument between science-based medicine and
alternative therapies." [5] Certainly this was "prefigured even when
medicine itself was pre-scientific." [5] Culpeper professed "a
complete system of "alternative" healing," [6] and promoted the "use
of plants to heal yourself or your own family." [6] He is thus
regarded "in some quarters as one of the patron saints of New Age
medicine." [8] This book augments that image, reminding us that he
remains "as beloved in the field of natural medicine as Shakespeare is
in drama." [10]
Culpeper's "holistic view of medicine, upset the establishment." [6]
For example, "one of his main criticisms of physicians was that they
concentrated on the disease rather than the patient." [7] Even though
this was "medicine that belonged to the pre-mechanistic, pre-Newtonian
age," [12] yet "Culpeper's approach now seems curiously modern." [7]
His radicalism "in opposing chemistry and developing a theory of
natural cure and self-healing," [5] also resonates with medicine
today. The ancient view that saw "the link between malady and the
occult influences of the stars," [12] and "looked to the heavens to
explain mortal afflictions," [12] may have been eclipsed, but many
today are still "starry-eyed about primitive medicine." [11] Even his
challenge to commercialism has a distinctly modern ring: "imagine the
anger of the drug companies today if a rebel chemist published a list
of herbal extracts that could match their best-selling products for a
tenth of the cost." [9]
Culpeper clearly "sparked off a debate about patient power that is
still unresolved today." [7] By highlighting that people are "denied
control over their medical treatment," [6] this implied that "medicine
is too important to be left to the doctors." [8] By challenging "the
principle that medical knowledge belonged solely to physicians--indeed
that expert knowledge of any sort belonged to the experts, he helped
to reveal a division that has yet to heal, between orthodox and
alternative medicine, between professional expertise and personal
empowerment." [8] Culpeper's chief legacy is "the idea that medicine
is not something that should be controlled and administered by the
elite but something belonging to everybody--is as important and,
perhaps, as revolutionary, now as it was in the 17th century." [6]
This makes this story still very relevant today.
Sources
[1] Lisa Jardine, Royalist vs. Radical: William Harvey and Nicholas
Culpeper in Benjamin Woolley's the Herbalist, The Guardian, February
28, 2004, p.14
[2] Roy Herbert, Natural Rebel, New Scientist, April 3, 2004, p.50
[3] Victoria Glendinning, Ahead of his Thyme, Daily Mail, April 2,
2004, p.58
[4] Jayne Howarth, Medicine for the Man in the Street, Birmingham
Post, March 13, 2004, p.53
[5] Robin Blake, The Herbalist: Nicholas Culpeper and the Fight for
Medical Freedom, Financial Times, March 6, 2004, p.33
[6] Scarlett Thomas, The Boy Who Broke Every Rule in the Book; The
Herbalist By Benjamin Woolley, Independent on Sunday, February 29,
2004, p.18
[7] Jenny Gilbert, Radio - Book of the Week: The Herbalist',
Independent on Sunday, February 29, 2004, p.51
[8] George Rosie, The Medicine Man, The Sunday Herald, Glasgow,
February 29, 2004, p.11
[9] Miranda Seymour, He Spilled the Beans - The Honest Apothecary Who
Revealed the Medical Establishment's Secrets, The Daily Telegraph,
February 21, 2004, p.6
[10] Ronald Hutton, The Alternative Medicine Man, The Independent,
February 20, 2004
[11] Caroline Moore, Medicine for the Masses - Nicholas Culpeper's
'Herbal' Meant that Treatment was no Longer Just for the Rich, Sunday
Telegraph, February 15, 2004, p.13
[12] Roy Strong, Curing Society's Ills, Sunday Times, February 8,
2004, p.41
Acknowledgement
I acknowledge my grateful thanks to Gregory Vlamis of Chicago for
supplying some invaluable source material without which writing this
essay would have been rendered much more difficult.
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