RE: herbal tinctures

["GC" <glenclaston@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dana,

I appreciate any effort, and I know it will be
impossible to match all the herbs.  I know it’s
quite involved, and I thank you for any time you
might spend on this.  It is my hope that at least
one or two of these sprigs cross reference to
other identifiable plants in the herbal.  In the
next few months I’ll try to give some names of
these plants for verification, as time permits,
which may be the better way of travelling this
course in any event.

I believe the jars to be actual jars, and here is
some background information that I am using to
formulate my ideas on this section at present:

Apparently the medeival physician had a very
elaborate scheme set up to determine what herbe
and what part of the herbe was appropriate for
certaine treatments, according to the ephemerides,
a general astrological chart or almanac.  In
addition each person of any account usually had a
personal chart drawn up and stored in a safe place
for use by the attending physician.  Any and every
act of physike or surgery was conducted according
to the charts, whether it be blood letting,
surgery, or general medication.

The almanac also determined the planting and
harvesting of herbes, down to when to pick the
flowers, harvest the bark or the stalk, or pick
the leaves for drying, distillation or tincturing.
According to this system, the moon is actually the
chief mechanism, since it is the closest body to
the earth.  The moon in its course passes through
the zodiac and the minor constellations and
“conveys” their influence to the growing herb,
just as it does to man's body.  Given the nature
of this philosophy, it is not surprising that I
have been left with the sense for some time that
much of the VMS has to do with the moon’s
influence.

While the moon is the chief conveyor of the
“occult” properties of the Zodiac to the plants,
each portion of the plant is influenced by the
planets in a way that makes all parts of the herb
usable for different and varied treatments in
astrological physicke.
This is from Askham’s herball:

“Also the Sonne draweth first from the roote the
lyvely moysture, that maketh the herbe to growe, &
wax.  Saturne holdeth the mater together in the
roote stalke and leaves.  Jupiter geveth the
temperature, benefete, shap, and fasshyon, and the
ayrie humour and smell.  Mars hardeneth and gyveth
the woody stalkes and strength.  The Sonne gyueth
a contynual increase of lyfe, by a lively hete.
Venus gyueth the flowers, fayreness and temperate
humour.  Mercury geveth the leaves, the watry
humoure.”

Some of the pharmaceutical section seems to focus
on roots, which would be pharmaceuticals dealing
with Saturn, while another has mostly leaves, an
influence of Mercury.  This is of course a general
observation and without knowing the names of the
plants it is an impression without support.
Nevertheless my feeling is that this is indeed a
pharmacological section, and not something simply
drawn to look like one.  (Any remedy composed of
Saturnian influences would of course limit its use
to those parts of the body that were governed by
Saturn, giving us some closer idea of the subject
matter in the associated paragraphs.)

Some of the jars also have “labels” on them.  Many
common herbal remedies had names assigned to them,
taken from Macer, Pliny, etc., as well as some
common local names for local remedies.  It’s true
that the ingredients of these concoctions
sometimes varied widely (like those for Aqua Vitae
or Ignis Aqua), but the names for these remedies
were were as common to the people then as
 “aspirin” is today.*  It’s also true that
misidentification of herbs was a very common
problem.  The herbalist usually only had a vague
description to go on when searching for the herb
in his neighborhood, and many times misnamed a
local herb for one described in Pliny.  What the
herbalist used may be one that only resembles
Pliny’s description.  Of course Galenist theory
roughly states that something that looks like the
one you're looking for will have the same basic
properties and influences, just as all green
stones have the same influences by virtue of their
color.
*(See “The Names of Herbes”, by William Turner,
1568, and the “Pharmaco-Pinax” of Gordon’s
Apothecarie, 1625 for examples.)

We also have some idea why there are drawings that
involve the sun, the moon and the winds.  A review
of the many almanacs generated during this period
demonstrates a belief that the position of the
zodiac determined the direction of the winds, the
formation of the clouds, the distribution of heat
and cold, dry and moist, and the weather in
general.  This system of astrology expounded by
Messahala was so closely knit as to be one system,
not easily divisible into separate “sciences” of
weather, surgery, physike, apothecarie, or for
that matter, hunting, hawking, or even when the
best time would be to travel.

A good example of this would be that hen’s tallowe
or duck’s tallowe are used as ingredients for
plasters, but they must be “harvested” according
to the chart for the greatest effect.  Hart bones
and antlers must be procured according to the
chart as well.  This ties hunting and hawking in
with the pharmacologist’s concerns.  Even eating
the meat of these animals may be judiciously
accomplished by the ephemerides for best effect.
Hot and dry herbes must be harvested under hot and
dry influences, while those that have venerial or
lunar influences are harvested at their
appropriate times, mostly at night during the
waxing of the moon.

I doubt very seriously that much of this was daily
practiced by the common man or the common
physician, but a cloistered monk who made this a
study would rule his life by the stars.  In fact,
there are two English candidates from this period,
Anthony Askham, Vicar of Byrnstyn, and Thomas
Paynell, Chanon of Martin Abbey, both acquainted
and possibly friends.  Askham practiced as a
physician and wrote books on herbes, astronomy and
almanacs all associated with medicine.  Paynell
wrote books on cures for the French Poxe, the
causes and cures for the Pestilence, and Englished
and augmented a book by Joannes de Mediolano
called “Regimen sanitatis Salerni”, the Regiment
of Health, a guide to daily eating, drinking,
bathing, hygiene, etc., with an emphasis on the
teachings of Galen.

There is no one section of the VMS that falls
outside this general philosophy.  In fact, a
better understanding of this "science" offers
plausible explanations and meanings to many of the
baffling drawings, charts and sketches contained
in the VMS.  One section in itself doesn't tie
things together, but as each section is understood
by these teachings, the whole adds up to a
medicinal herbal composed by a student (and
possibly master)of this art.

My tools are far too rudimentary at this point,
but I’m trying to fine-tune for the herbal
section.  If I am able to pull out some of the
plant names I can progress much further, and any
identifications would be of great help.  Your list
of plant names for pages will be a big help as
well for the other herbal pages.  The way this
thing moves is extremely baffling, but by now I
know it has a central point on which the system
focuses, and it slides either way from there.  It’
s my sense that the numbering scheme is based on
some redundant astrological movement, and not
nearly as involved as I’m currently making it out
to be.  The more text I have the more I’ll know,
and this section is in my estimation the best
place to start.

GC

-----Original Message-----
From: Dana Scott [mailto:dfscott@xxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Sunday, February 10, 2002 12:37 PM
Cc: VMS List; AFScott@xxxxxxx
Subject: Re: herbal tinctures


I will do the best that I can in an attempt to
identify these sprigs, but
please understand that it may be an order of
magnitude more complex than
identifying whole plant drawings. We have already
seen that fruits and flowers
might not be included in the drawings and that
leaves may not match as
expected. I also have a tendency to go after
whatever strikes my fancy at the
time. A single plant identification may easily
take 8 hours to investigate.
With the sprigs I am thinking an investigation
will last around 10-15 hours
each (total time), except in the cases where there
is an obvious match to a
plant already identified at another location in
the VMS. Just for your
information, I am not necessarily convinced that
what look like jars are
actually a representation of jars. Another
possibility may be that they are
dissected anatomical models of plants categorized
by vascular bundles, etc.
Once the sprigs are identified, it will no doubt
be much easier to determine
how they are grouped and classified. I will try to
focus on completing the rows
in order, unless of course I see something in
another row that I think I can
identify right away. Thank you for your patience.
Any assistance will be
greatly appreciated. It may take a while.

Regards,
Dana Scott

John Grove wrote:

> Small clarifications to GC's comments...
>
> > Starting with page 89r
>
> You meant 88r1?
> > 3 jars    3 rows of plants    3 Paragraphs
>
> 88v1:
> > 3 jars    3 rows of plants    3 Paragraphs
>
> 89r1: (Although, it appears to me that there are
two jars for the last
> paragraph, one in front of the other)
> > 3 jars    3 rows of plants    3 Paragraphs
>
> 89r2: (so total jars for 89 r1/r2 foldout is
possibly 8 jars with 7rows and
> 6 paras)
> > 4 jars    4 rows of plants    3 Paragraphs
(odd
> > man out)
> Oddly, there is some rather distinctive spacing
in the paragraphs down the
> right side (in the half page foldout that could
be another paragraph on its
> own that just happens to line up with the rest
of the text)
>
> 89v2:
> > 3 jars    3 rows of plants    3 Paragraphs
>
> 89v1: (total for 89v foldout 5/5/5)
> > 2 jars    2 rows of plants    2 Paragraphs
>
> In the photostat we have two copies of page 89v1
> > 2 jars    2 rows of plants    2 Paragraphs
> >
>
> > Starting with 95r
> 99r?
> > 4 jars    4 rows of plants    4 Paragraphs
>
> 99v
> > 4 jars    4 rows of plants    4 Paragraphs
>
> 100r
> > 2 jars    2 rows of plants    2 Paragraphs
>
> 100v (Could be argued that there are 3 rows of
plants)
> > 1 jar     1 set of plants     1 Paragraph
>
> 101r1/r2 must be combined and there are 3 jars
(the bottom one follows a
> couple of plants,
> so the actual total for both pages is 3 jars/3
rows of plants/3
> paragraphs:first para only two lines of text)
> > 2 jars    2 sets of plants    2 Paragraphs
>
> 101v2/v1 combined as title spreads across bottom
of page
> > 3 jars    3 rows of plants    3 Paragraphs
>
> 102r1
> > 3 jars    3 rows of plants    3 Paragraphs
>
> 102r2
> > 3 jars    3 rows of plants    3 Paragraphs
>
> 102v2
> > 2 jars    2 rows of plants    2 Paragraphs
>
> 102v1
> > 2 jars    2 rows of plants    2 Paragraphs
> >