VMs: Antidotary labels...

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

At 18:10 27/05/2003 -0500, GC wrote:
> While we're on this particular subject of lotions and potions, I'd
> like to harken back to your [Nick's] comment that the labels in the
> pharmaceutical/antidotary section are probably apothecary's
> weights and measures.   In Texican I'd have to say "That don't
> make no sense no how". I've gone through so many books between
> 1450 and 1550 on the subjects of surgery, medicine, blood letting,
> urine testing, herbal growth, harvesting, etc., and in no single
> instance are weights used.  As to measures, they are used
> occasionally, but only in the broadest sense.  A "spoonful" here,
> a "small quantitie" there, a "large quantitie" when things get
> tough.  Virtually no weights, no measures, and no efforts at exact
> duplication of effort or effect.  All the high math went not into
> calculating the dosage, but into accurately calculating the
> "astronomical" influences that gave these drugs their potency.
> These guys tell you without blinking an eye that an herb that
> works under Saturnian influences will NOT work when Saturn's
> influence is not present.  The focus  on the effect of the drug,
> or on its weights and measures is simply not there.

This is largely true: in my experience, most apothecary measures in ms 
recipes of 1450 and before were normally in 1s, 2s, 4s, but (especially) 3s 
(because of its magical connotations) - echoes of which unsophisticated 
measures I see reflected in the VMS' dain daiin daiiin.

It may simply be that, as you suggest, the labels in the antidotary are 
astrological - I was reminded of this by this quote from Revilo P Oliver's 
text from 1990 which Dana just pointed out:-

        The manuscript is either (a) a hoax, i.e., a
        meaninglessly mysterious concoction to support
        a fraudulent tale about a wonderful group of
        sages who had discovered cosmic secrets, or
        (b) a statement of a secret doctrine, probably
        influenced by the Hermetic corpus and the Jewish
        Kabbalah, and possibly by Dee's "Monas hieroglyphica,"
        expressed in the specially devised symbols of an
        artificial language, i.e., a one-part code
        logically arranged. (8)

        (8. In such a code, for example, using the Roman
        alphabet, A = astronomical terms; AB = stellar
        bodies; ABA = the sun; ABB = the moon; ABC = a
        planet; ABCA = Mercury; ABCB = Venus; etc. ABD =
        "fixed" stars; ABDA = Sirius; ABDB = Aldebran;
        etc. AC = constellations; ACA = Ursa Major; ACB
        = Ursa Minor, etc. AD = the zodiac; ADA = Aries;
        ADB = Aquarius; etc. AE = aspects; AEA =
        conjunction; AEB = opposition; AEC = ascending
        node; etc. AF = phenomena; AFA = total eclipse,
        AFB = partial eclipse; etc., etc.)

However tempting an idea this is, I don't think our understanding of the 
Voynich alphabet/cipherbet is yet quite strong enough for us to test it. 
Even the simplest explanation of the text - that it's written in a kind of 
pair cipher with most vowels removed - has yet to be properly tested.

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling..... 


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