Victorian Herbal Extremes - Heroic versus Botanic Medicine
Wednesday 15 June 2022
Many people associate the Victorian era with poisons. Medicine at the time concentrated on the use of mercury, antimony, prussic acid and arsenic. Powerful and potentially poisonous herbs such as foxglove, belladonna and particularly opium were administered alongside purges and bleeding and with each generation a loss of constitutional strength was observed in the population.
After exploring life in middle class Victorian homes, this course will look at the plight of poorer families who had moved into towns to work in mills and factories. This move led to a loss of herbal knowledge and coincided with the arrival of Dr. Coffin and Thomsonian botanical medicines from America, which went on to flourish in the industrial midlands and north of England.
The day will then focus on making botanical medicines including horehound and ginger cough syrup and the much used barberry bitters. Other recipes will use North and South American herbs such as lobelia, balmony, bayberry, Pinus Canadensis, golden seal, prickly ash and pokeroot alongside the more familiar British native plants. To enhance knowledge further we’ll also discuss folklore and find out about ash, hawthorn, bay, birch, elder, lime, hazel, horse chestnut, oak and willow.
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Wednesday 15 June 2022
Many people associate the Victorian era with poisons. Medicine at the time concentrated on the use of mercury, antimony, prussic acid and arsenic. Powerful and potentially poisonous herbs such as foxglove, belladonna and particularly opium were administered alongside purges and bleeding and with each generation a loss of constitutional strength was observed in the population.
After exploring life in middle class Victorian homes, this course will look at the plight of poorer families who had moved into towns to work in mills and factories. This move led to a loss of herbal knowledge and coincided with the arrival of Dr. Coffin and Thomsonian botanical medicines from America, which went on to flourish in the industrial midlands and north of England.
The day will then focus on making botanical medicines including horehound and ginger cough syrup and the much used barberry bitters. Other recipes will use North and South American herbs such as lobelia, balmony, bayberry, Pinus Canadensis, golden seal, prickly ash and pokeroot alongside the more familiar British native plants. To enhance knowledge further we’ll also discuss folklore and find out about ash, hawthorn, bay, birch, elder, lime, hazel, horse chestnut, oak and willow.
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