#January 10, 1654
#OTD Nicholas #Culpeper, English #Botanist, #Herbalist, #Physician, & #Astrologer, died.
A radical thinker, his Complete #Herbal revealed medicinal secrets to the masses & was still used in #JaneAusten's time - a century later. He didn't charge the poor & examined many of his patients for free.
Nicholas used #Melancholy #Thistle (Cirsium heterophyllum) for depression:
"[Added to] #Wine, it expels superfluous melancholy out of the body, & makes a man as #Merry as a cricket."
The text on the written image reads:
“View in this face, whom Heaven snatcht from hence,
Our Phisicall and Starrie Influence;
Had not Great Culpeper such order tooke,
In spight of Fate to Live still in this Booke.“