Nicholas Culpeper

Nicholas Culpeper
Engraving by Richard Gaywood
Born18 October 1616
Ockley, Surrey, England
Died10 January 1654 (aged 37)
Spitalfields, London, England
Alma materCambridge University
Known forThe English Physitian (Complete Herbal), 1652–1653
Scientific career
FieldsBotany
Herbalism
Medicine
Astrology

Nicholas Culpeper (18 October 1616 – 10 January 1654) was an English botanist, herbalist, physician and astrologer.[1] His book The English Physitian (1652, later Complete Herbal, 1653 ff.) is a source of pharmaceutical and herbal lore of the time, and Astrological Judgement of Diseases from the Decumbiture of the Sick (1655)[2] one of the most detailed works on medical astrology in Early Modern Europe. Culpeper catalogued hundreds of outdoor medicinal herbs. He scolded contemporaries for some of the methods they used in herbal medicine: "This not being pleasing, and less profitable to me, I consulted with my two brothers, Dr. Reason and Dr. Experience, and took a voyage to visit my mother Nature, by whose advice, together with the help of Dr. Diligence, I at last obtained my desire; and, being warned by Mr. Honesty, a stranger in our days, to publish it to the world, I have done it."[3]

Culpeper came from a line of notabilities, including the courtier Thomas Culpeper, who was reputed to be a lover of Catherine Howard (also a distant relative), the fifth wife of Henry VIII.[4][5]

  1. ^ Patrick Curry: "Culpeper, Nicholas (1616–1654)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, UK: OUP, 2004)
  2. ^ I. e. confinement to a sickbed or an astrological chart taken then. [www.Collinsdictionary.com. Retrieved 10 September 2019.]
  3. ^ Culpeper, Nicholas (1835). The Complete Herbal. University of California Libraries (1835 ed.). London: Thomas Kelly.
  4. ^ Lacey Baldwin Smith, A Tudor Tragedy. New York: Pantheon Books, 1961.
  5. ^ Harmes, Paul and Hart-Davies, Christina (January 2014). "Sussex Botanical Recording Society newsletter, pp8-9" (PDF).{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

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