Library
The old books
Herbals and materia medicas published before 1931, now in the public domain. Each book says whose knowledge it records and who wrote it down, and each passage is transcribed from a photograph of the original page, spelling and misprints included.
These are historical records. What they claim is theirs, not ours; for what the evidence says today, each passage links to its herb in the Materia Medica.
African
1819 · London
Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee
T. Edward Bowdich
An account of a British diplomatic mission to Kumasi, the capital of the Asante kingdom, in 1817. Its chapter on materia medica lists, plant by plant, the medicines used in Kumasi and how they were prepared, with the Twi name first and a botanist's identification after it.
1 passage transcribed
1857 · Cape Town
Floræ Capensis Medicæ Prodromus (second edition)
L. Pappe
The first catalog of the Cape's medicinal plants: a short botanical description of each plant, followed by what it was used for, how it was prepared and where it grew. It is where buchu, honeybush and Cape aloes first appear together as Cape medicines.
7 passages transcribed
1895 · Lovedale, South Africa
A Contribution to South African Materia Medica (third edition)
Andrew Smith
A book of the plants used as medicine in the Eastern Cape, arranged by the complaint they were used for. For each plant it gives the Dutch and local names, a description, and how the leaf or root was prepared and taken, with cases the author was told about.
4 passages transcribed
1915 · London
The Useful Plants of Nigeria, Part III (Kew Bulletin, Additional Series IX)
J. H. Holland
A plant-by-plant survey of what grows in Nigeria and West Africa and what it is used for: food, medicine, timber, oil and trade. Each article gives the plant's local names, where it was collected, how it is used and prepared, and trade figures. Part III covers the flowering families from the coffee family (Rubiaceae) to the mint family (Labiatae).
9 passages transcribed
1922 · London
The Useful Plants of Nigeria, Part IV (Kew Bulletin, Additional Series IX)
J. H. Holland
The final part of a plant-by-plant survey of what grows in Nigeria and West Africa and what it is used for. It covers the rest of the flowering plants, including the pepper, ginger and grass families, with local names, collecting places, uses, preparation and trade.
4 passages transcribed
Caribbean
1707 · London
A Voyage to the Islands Madera, Barbados, Nieves, S. Christophers and Jamaica, vol. 1
Hans Sloane
The first volume of a physician's natural history of Jamaica, from his stay on the island in 1687 to 1689. A long introduction describes food, drink, farming and illness on the island; the rest catalogs its plants.
1 passage transcribed
1756 · London
The Civil and Natural History of Jamaica
Patrick Browne
A physician's survey of Jamaica's plants and animals, arranged by the new Linnaean system, with a short English note on where each plant grows and how it was used as food, timber and medicine on the island.
9 passages transcribed
1794 · Kingston, Jamaica
Hortus Americanus
Henry Barham
An alphabetical account of the trees, shrubs and herbs of Jamaica and the neighboring mainland, with how each was eaten, used around the house and used as medicine. Written in the early 1700s and first printed in Kingston in 1794, long after the author's death.
8 passages transcribed
1814 · Jamaica
Hortus Jamaicensis
John Lunan
A two-volume account of the plants of Jamaica, their names, and how they were used as food and medicine on the island.
11 passages transcribed
1885 · Demerara, British Guiana
Timehri, vol. 4
Royal Agricultural and Commercial Society of British Guiana
The society's journal for 1885. This volume carries the judges' report on the British Guiana Exhibition, with notes on the medicinal barks, seeds and bush remedies shown there by exhibitors from Guyana and Dominica.
1 passage transcribed
Ayurvedic
1826 · London
Materia Indica
Whitelaw Ainslie
An account, in two volumes, of the plants and other articles used in medicine, the arts and farming in South India, with their names in Tamil, Sanskrit and other languages and how they were prepared and prescribed.
4 passages transcribed
1877 · Calcutta
The Materia Medica of the Hindus
Udoy Chand Dutt, with a glossary of Indian plants by George King
A compilation, in English, of the drugs of classical Hindu medicine. For each plant it gives the Sanskrit and vernacular names, what the Sanskrit medical writers said of it, and the prescriptions in which physicians used it, with the original Sanskrit verses in footnotes.
40 passages transcribed
1890 · Calcutta
Charaka-Samhita
Charaka; translated into English by Avinash Chandra Kaviratna
The first English translation of the Charaka Samhita, the oldest surviving comprehensive treatise of Ayurveda, issued in parts beginning in 1890. It covers the principles of health, diet, the qualities of foods and drugs, and the care of disease.
4 passages transcribed
1890 · London, Bombay and Calcutta
Pharmacographia Indica
William Dymock, C. J. H. Warden and David Hooper
A history of the principal plant drugs of British India, issued in parts from 1890 to 1893. For each plant it gathers what Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian medical writers said, current Indian bazaar and household use, and the chemistry of the day.
33 passages transcribed
1907 · Calcutta
An English Translation of the Sushruta Samhita, vol. 1 (Sutrasthanam)
Sushruta; edited and translated by Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna
The first volume of the first complete English translation of the Sushruta Samhita, the classical Ayurvedic treatise best known for its surgery. This volume, the Sutrasthanam, sets out first principles, the groups of drugs, and the qualities of foods and drinks.
6 passages transcribed
1918 · Allahabad
Indian Medicinal Plants
K. R. Kirtikar and B. D. Basu
A survey of the medicinal plants of India: a botanical description of each, its names in the languages of India, and the uses recorded by Sanskrit writers, Indian practitioners and earlier European authors. Text in two parts, with volumes of plates.
7 passages transcribed
Americas
1891 · Washington
The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees
James Mooney
Mooney's study of Cherokee medicine, published in the Bureau of Ethnology's Seventh Annual Report. The Library transcribes only his list of twenty medicinal plants, which gives each plant's Cherokee name and use beside what the U.S. Dispensatory said of it. The formulas themselves are sacred and are not transcribed.
1 passage transcribed
1915 · Washington
Ethnobotany of the Zuñi Indians
Matilda Coxe Stevenson
An account of the plants the Zuni of New Mexico used as medicine, food, fiber and dye and in daily life, with each plant's Zuni name and its meaning. Published in the Bureau of American Ethnology's Thirtieth Annual Report.
1 passage transcribed
1916 · Washington
Ethnobotany of the Tewa Indians
Wilfred William Robbins, John Peabody Harrington and Barbara Freire-Marreco
A study of the plants known to the Tewa of the Rio Grande pueblos, such as Santa Clara and San Ildefonso, and of Hano in Arizona: their Tewa names and their use as food, medicine and material. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 55.
2 passages transcribed
1919 · Washington
Uses of Plants by the Indians of the Missouri River Region
Melvin Randolph Gilmore
A plant-by-plant list of how the peoples of the Missouri River valley used the plants of the prairie as food, medicine, fiber, dye and fragrance, with each plant's name in Dakota, Omaha-Ponca, Winnebago and Pawnee. First printed in the Bureau of American Ethnology's Thirty-third Annual Report.
13 passages transcribed
1928 · Washington
Uses of Plants by the Chippewa Indians
Frances Densmore
A record of how the Chippewa (Ojibwe) of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Ontario gathered, prepared and used plants as food, drink, seasoning, medicine, dye and material, with tables of remedies by ailment. Published in the Bureau of American Ethnology's Forty-fourth Annual Report.
4 passages transcribed
East Asian
1911 · Shanghai
Chinese Materia Medica: Vegetable Kingdom
G. A. Stuart
An English guide to the plant drugs of the Chinese pharmacopoeia, built on the Bencao Gangmu (1578) of Li Shizhen and on Chinese drug shops of the time.
35 passages transcribed
Western
1814 · London
Culpeper's Complete Herbal
Nicholas Culpeper
An English herbal first published in 1652 and reprinted for two centuries. It describes each plant, where it grows, its astrological ruler and its Galenic qualities, and how it was used.
41 passages transcribed
1898 · Cincinnati
King's American Dispensatory, vol. 1
Harvey Wickes Felter and John Uri Lloyd
The standard reference of the Eclectic physicians, an American school of medicine that relied on native plants. Each article describes the plant, its preparation, its chemistry as then understood, and how Eclectic doctors used it.
48 passages transcribed
1905 · Cincinnati
King's American Dispensatory, vol. 2
Harvey Wickes Felter and John Uri Lloyd
The second volume of the Eclectic physicians' reference (1905 printing of the 1898 edition), covering plants from K to Z.
92 passages transcribed