Plants and Health
Kat Ford
In the Renaissance, whether you heard how to cure an upset stomach from your mother or read it in a fancy published tome, you knew how to cure what ailed you due to the frequent use of herbal remedies at the time. Even with the knowledge of what you need to stop your watering eyes or dizziness, the prospect of relief depended more heavily on the availability of cures. A common backyard garden herb such as balm would be more likely to be around if you’ve got a stomach problem than Tacamahaca gum (Mondares FIII.Aiii verso), indigenous only in the New World. This is another reason that the Herbal never caught on with the poor or uneducated people of the time period, who would rather learn about how to grow common remedies for toothaches and better ways to clean wounds than about an obscure root found in the East Indies.
Remedies that were more common were also more likely to work than others that had been discovered or tested recently. Types of remedies were characterized by what went into them, for the entire plant could be used in different ways to cure different ailments, just as the juice of cotton leaves is good for the Lask of children and the ashes of its fibers stop the bleeding of wounds (Coles CClXXIV). Although some cures involved simply eating the raw plant, such as carrots for stopping stomach pain (Hill, The Table), many others required combining and boiling mixtures that would rival the cough syrup of today. The type of potion you would create depended on the type of liquid base one used. If one were to use distilled water and boil the mixture, you would have created a decoction. Although many recipes for cures such as a marigold decoction to cure defects of the eyes (Hill 32) or a decoction of sage for bringing down a woman’s courses (Culpeper 219), Thomas Tryon in The Way to Health and Long Life: Or, A Discourse of Temperance "destroy the herbs virtues", in reference to the boiling. However, not boiling water to cleanse it would also be detrimental to health, as many were coming to realize that drinking unsanitized water could make you very ill. For those who did not have the tools available to distill water, another liquid form of remedy was available. This type of medicine was created with milk, mixed with herb and curdled in wine or ale, and was called a posset drink. Posset drinks were most commonly used as a remedy for colds and flus, often mixed with seeds and herbs to strengthen its healing capabilities, for example, "the seed of the black Poppy drunk in Wine [as a posset], stoppeth the Flux of the belly" (Coles 7). Both forms of liquid medicine were common practice and often a recipe for one or the other was included in every use of a plant or herb found in herbals and health handbooks of the period.
Remedies that were more common were also more likely to work than others that had been discovered or tested recently. Types of remedies were characterized by what went into them, for the entire plant could be used in different ways to cure different ailments, just as the juice of cotton leaves is good for the Lask of children and the ashes of its fibers stop the bleeding of wounds (Coles CClXXIV). Although some cures involved simply eating the raw plant, such as carrots for stopping stomach pain (Hill, The Table), many others required combining and boiling mixtures that would rival the cough syrup of today. The type of potion you would create depended on the type of liquid base one used. If one were to use distilled water and boil the mixture, you would have created a decoction. Although many recipes for cures such as a marigold decoction to cure defects of the eyes (Hill 32) or a decoction of sage for bringing down a woman’s courses (Culpeper 219), Thomas Tryon in The Way to Health and Long Life: Or, A Discourse of Temperance "destroy the herbs virtues", in reference to the boiling. However, not boiling water to cleanse it would also be detrimental to health, as many were coming to realize that drinking unsanitized water could make you very ill. For those who did not have the tools available to distill water, another liquid form of remedy was available. This type of medicine was created with milk, mixed with herb and curdled in wine or ale, and was called a posset drink. Posset drinks were most commonly used as a remedy for colds and flus, often mixed with seeds and herbs to strengthen its healing capabilities, for example, "the seed of the black Poppy drunk in Wine [as a posset], stoppeth the Flux of the belly" (Coles 7). Both forms of liquid medicine were common practice and often a recipe for one or the other was included in every use of a plant or herb found in herbals and health handbooks of the period.