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You're built to win it. Welcome to snoozecast, the podcast designed to help you fall asleep. Find us on Snewscast.com and if you'd like to get a weekly email with upcoming episodes, subscribe to the Snewsletter on our website to scroll all the way to the bottom of the form. This episode is brought to you by mortars and pestles. Tonight we'll read from the complete herbal written by Nicholas Culpepper published in 1653. Culpepper was an English botanist, herbalist, physician, and astrologer. This episode first aired in April of 2021. Colpepper cataloged hundreds of outdoor medicinal herbs. He attempted to make medical treatments more accessible to laypersons by educating them about maintaining their health. Ultimately, his ambition was to reform the system of medicine by questioning traditional methods and knowledge and exploring new solutions for ill health. The systematization of the use of herbals by Culpepper was a key development in the evolution of modern pharmaceuticals, most of which originally had herbal origins. Culpepper's emphasis on reason rather than tradition is reflected in the introduction to his complete herbal. He was one of the best known astrological botanist of his day, pairing the plants and diseases with planetary influences. Colpepper believed medicine was a public asset, not a commercial secret, and the prices physicians charged were far too high compared with the cheap and universal availability of nature's medicine. For this, he was considered a radical and even accused of witchcraft. Let's get cozy. Close your eyes. Relax your body into the softness of your bed. Now take a few deep breaths. for making serups, conserves, etc. I have promised you the way of making serups, conserves, oils, appointments, etc. Out of herbs, roots, flowers, etc. whereby you may have them ready for your use at some times when they cannot be had otherwise. I come now to perform what I promised and you shall find me rather better than worse than my word, of leaves of herbs or trees. One of leaves choose only those such as our green and full of juice, pick them carefully, and cast away such as any that are declining, for they will putrify the rest. So shall one handful be worth ten of those you buy at the medical herb shops. Two, note what places they most delight to grow in and gather them there. Our bedding that grows in the shade is far better than that which grows in the sun, because it delights in the shade. So also such herbs as delight to grow near the water shall be gathered near it, though happily you may find some of them upon dry ground. The treatise will inform you where every herb delights to grow. 3. The leaves of such herbs as run up to seed are not so good when they are in flower as before. Some few accepted the leaves of which are seldom are never used. In such cases, if through ignorance they were not known or through negligence forgotten, you had better take the top and the flowers than the the leaf. 4. Dry them well in the sun and not in the shade, as the saying of physicians is. For if the sun draw away the virtues of the herb, it must need do the like by hay, by the same rule, which the experience of every country farmer will explode for a notable piece of nonsense. 5. Such as are artists in astrology, and indeed none else are fit to make physicians such I advise. Let the planet that governs the herb be angular and the stronger the better, if they can, in herbs of Saturn. Let Saturn be in the ascendant. In the herbs of Mars, let Mars be in the mid-heaven. For in those houses they delight. Let the moon apply to them by good aspect, and let her not be in the houses of her enemies. If you cannot well stay till she applied to them, let her apply to a planet of the same triplicity. If you cannot wait that time neither, let her be with a fixed star of their nature. 6. Everything will dry them. Put them up in brown paper, sowing the paper up like a sack, and press them not too hard together, and keep them in a dry place near the fire. 7. As for the duration of dry derbs a just time cannot be given. Let authors pray their pleasure for, first, such as grow upon dry grounds will keep better than such as grow on moist. Secondly, such herbs as our full of juice will not keep so long as such as our dryer. Thirdly, such herbs as our well-dried will keep longer than such as our slack dried. Yet you may know when they are corrupted by their loss of color, or smell, or both. And if they be corrupted, reason will tell you that they must needs corrupt the bodies of those people that take them. 4. Gather all leaves in the hour of the planet that governs them. Both flowers. 1. The flower, which is the beauty of the plant, and of none of the least use in medicine, grows yearly, and is to be gathered when it is in his prime. 2. As for the time of gathering them, let the planetary hour and the planet they come of be observed as we showed you in the foregoing chapter. for the time of day, let it be when the sun shine upon them, that so they may be dry, for if you gather either flowers or herbs when they are wet or dewy, they will not keep. 3.

Try them well in the sun, and keep them in papers near the fire, as I showed you in the foregoing chapter. 4. So long as they retain the color and smell, they are good. either of them being gone, so is the virtue also.

Of seeds. 1. The seed is that part of the plant, which is endowed with a vital faculty to bring fourth it's like, and it contains potentially the whole plant in it.

2. As for place, let them be gathered from the place where they delight to grow. 3. Let them be fully ripe when they are gathered, and forget not the celestial harmony before mentioned.

Brigha found by experience that their virtues are twice as great at such times as others. There is an appointed time for everything under the sun. 4. you have gathered them, dry them a little and but a little in the sun before you lay them up. 5. You need not be so careful of keeping them so near the fire as the other before mentioned because they are fuller of spirit, and therefore not so subject to corrupt. 6. As for the time of their duration, it is palpable they will keep a good many years, yet they are best the first year, and this I make appear by a good argument. They will grow sooner the first year they be set. Therefore then they are in their prime. And it is an easy matter to renew them yearly. Of roots. 1. Of roots. 2 Choose such as our neither rotten nor warm eaten, but proper in their taste, color and smell, such as exceed neither in softness nor hardness. Two. me leave to be a little critical against the vulgar received opinion, which is that the sap falls down into the roots in the autumn and rises again in the spring as men go to bed at night and rise in the morning. And this idle talk of untruth is so grounded in the heads, not only of the vulgar, but also of the learned that a man cannot drive it out by reason. I pray let such sap mongers answer me this argument. If the sap falls into the roots in the fall of the leaf and lies there all the winter, then must the root grow only in the winter. But the root grows not at all in the winter as experienced teaches, but only in the summer. Therefore, if you set an apple seed in the spring, you shall find the root to grow to a pretty big nest in the summer, and be not a wit bigger next spring. What do the sap do in the root all that while? Pix draws? Does this rod end as a rod in post? The truth is, when the sun declines from the tropic of cancer, the sap begins to congeal both in root and branch. When he touches the tropic of capricorn and ascends to usward, it begins to wax thin again and by degrees as it congealed. But to proceed. 3. The drier time you gather the roots in, the better they are, for they have the less excrementitious moisture in them. For such roots as are soft, your best ways to dry them in the sun, or else hang them in the chimney corner upon a string As for such as our heart, you may dry them anywhere. 5. Such roots as our grate will keep longer than such as our small, yet most of them will keep a year. 6. Such roots as our soft, it is your best way to keep them always near the fire and to take this general rule for it. If in winter time you find any of your roots, herbs or flowers begin to be moist as many times you shall. For it is your best way to look to them once a month. Dry them by a very gentle fire. Or if you can, with convenience, keep them near the fire. You may save yourself the labor. 7. It is in vain to dry roots that may commonly be had, as parsley, fennel, etc. But gather them only for present need.

Of barks.

One.

Barks.

Which physicians use in medicine are of these sorts?

Of fruits, of roots, of bows.

Two.

The barks of fruits are to be taken when the fruit is full ripe, as oranges, lemons, etc. But because I have nothing to do with exotics here, I pass them without any more words. 3. The barks of trees are best gathered in the spring. If a vixx were such great trees, because then they come as you're off, and so you may dry them if you please. But indeed, the best way is to gather all barks only for present use. For as for the barks of roots, tis thus to be gotten, take the roots of such herbs as have a pith in them, as parsley, fennel, etc. Slit them in the middle, and when you have taken out the pith, which you may easily do, that which remains is called, though improperly, the bark, and indeed is only to be used. Of juices 1. Juices are to be pressed out of herbs when they are young and tender out of some stalks and tender tops of herbs and plants and also out of some flowers.

Two, having gathered the herb, would you preserve the juice of it when it is very dry? For otherwise the juice will not be worth a button. it very well in a stone mortar with a wooden pestle. Then, having put it into a canvas bag, the herb I mean, not the mortar, for that will give but little juice. Press it hard in a press, then take the juice and clarify it. Three, the manner of clarifying it is this. Put it into a pipkin or skillet or some such thing and set it over the fire. And when the scum arises, take it off. Let it stand over the fire till no more scum arise. When you have your juice clarified, cast away the scum as a thing of no use. 4. When you have thus clarified it, you have two ways to preserve it all the year. 1. When it is cold, put it into a glass and put not so much oil on it as it will cover it to the thickness of two fingers. The oil will swim at the top and so keep the air from coming into it. When you intend to use it, pour it into a plunger and if any oil come out with it, you may easily scum it off with a spoon and put the juice you use not into the glass again. It will quickly sink under the oil. This is the first way. 2. The second way is a little more difficult, and the juice of the fruits is usually preserved this way. When you have clarified it, boil it over the fire, till being cold, it be of the thickness of honey. This is most commonly used for diseases of the mouth.

And thus much for the first section.

The second follows.

Section two.

The way of making and keeping all necessary compounds. Chapter 1 of Distilled Waters Either too, we have spoken of medicines which consist in their own nature, which authors This vulgarly call symbols, those sometimes improperly, for in truth nothing is simple but pure elements, all things else are compounded of them. We come now to treat of the artificial medicines, in the form of which, because we must begin somewhere, we shall place distilled waters in which consider. One, waters are distilled of herbs, flowers, fruits and roots. Two, we treat not of strong waters but of cold. Three, we treat not of strong waters but of cold. 3. The herbs ought to be distilled when they are in their greatest figure, and so ought the flowers also. 4. The vulgar way of distillations which people use because because they know no better, is in a pewter still, and although distilled waters are the weakest of artificial medicines, and good for little but mixtures of other medicines, yet they are weaker by many degrees than they they would be if they were distilled in sand.

If I thought it not impossible to teach you the way of distilling in sand, I would attempt it. 5. When you have distilled your water, put it into a glass covered over with a paper of pricked full of holes so that the excrementitious and fiery vapors may excel. Which cause that settling in distilled waters called the mother, which corrupt them. Then cover it close and keep it for your use. 6. Stopping distilled waters with a cork makes them musty and sodas paper if it but touch the water. It is best to stop them with a bladder, being first put in water, and bound over the top of the glass. Such cold waters as are distilled in a puter still, if well-capped, will endure a year, such as are distilled in sand as their twice as strong, so they endure twice as long. Of syrups A syrups is a medicine of the liquid form composed of infusion, decalction and juice. And one, for the more grateful taste, taste and two for the better keeping of it, with

a certain quantity of honey or sugar hereafter mentioned, boiled to the thickness of new honey. You see at the first view that this aphorism divides itself into three branches which deserve severally to be treated of. One, zeroes made by infusion, two, zeroes made by decoction, three, zeroesps made by juice. Of each of these, for your instruction's sake, kind countrymen and women, I speak a word or two apart. First, syrups made by infusion are usually made of flowers and of such flowers as soon lose their color and strength by boiling. As roses, violets, peach flowers, etc. They are thus made. Having picked your flowers clean, to every pound of them add three pounds or three pints which you will for it is all one of spring water made boiling hot first put your flowers into a pewter pot with a cover and pour the water over them.

Then, shutting the pot, let it stand by the fire to keep pot 12 hours and strain it out. In such serums as purge, as to mask roses, peach flowers, etc. the usual and indeed the best way is to repeat this infusion, adding fresh flowers to the same liquor, diverse times, that so it may be stronger. Strain it out. Put the infusion into a pewter basin.

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