About the Book
Culpeper's Complete Herbal and English Physician descends from Nicholas Culpeper's outlaw classic of 1653 — the book that translated the physicians' guarded Latin into plain English so that any family could gather, prepare and prescribe its own medicine. Each herb appears with its description, its 'government' (the planet that rules it), its virtues, and the ailments it was trusted to cure.
Culpeper, a radical London apothecary who treated the poor for nothing, was denounced by the College of Physicians for breaking their monopoly; his revenge has been three and a half centuries of continuous printing. This Victorian edition preserves his astrological botany and his cures exactly as generations of households used them.
This digital edition presents the complete keyed text, one herb to a page, A to Z. Its remedies are reproduced as history — consult a modern physician, not the planets, for medical advice.