Did the Astrological Content of Culpeper’s English Physitian Undermine its Usefulness?

Abstract

Nicholas Culpeper’s The English Physitian (1652) was constructed from what the author considered the best learned study of English herbal medicines and was sold for a few pence to a nation whose medical practitioners were unaffordable by the majority and who hid from them useful knowledge on herbal cures they could instead obtain cheaply. Why, then, did Culpeper obscure that knowledge with an overlay of a system of astrological diagnosis and prescription which only a very few had the skill to utilise? Did this not work against the purpose of the herbal, or was there a simpler way to do it? I argue that Culpeper expected that most readers would use a simple almanac to help them select the appropriate herbal medicines and I explain the method laid out in the herbal as ‘instruction for the right use of the book’ and provide a worked example. Use of an almanac facilitated most readers to practice a form of astrological medicine and appreciate both the God-given signs in the heavens and the herbal medicines freely available for the sicknesses which troubled the descendants of Adam and Eve who had been cast out of the Garden of Eden.