1. Materia Medica: Exploring Medieval Pharmacy
Detail from British Library Cotton Vitellius C III, f. 57v.

2. “In return for mere words [of gratitude] we use mountain herbs, but for real money, we recommend spices and aromatics.”

3. Materia Medica: Exploring Medieval Pharmacy
Of the three main branches of medicine (regimen, pharmacy and surgery), pharmacy is the best represented in the surviving sources.
Scholars have uncovered a fascinating history of commerce in materia medica, even in the earlier middle ages that has helped in the reconsideration of the often bewildering ingredients in medical manuscripts.
More recently, some have even ventured to experiment with recreating ancient and medieval remedies in laboratory settings, with sometimes surprising results; but how should we think of medieval medical efficacy?

4. Sources of Early Medieval Pharmacy
Herbals and other guides to Materia medica: ancient and medieval reference works, often illustrated
Antidotaria (sing. Antidotarium): recipe collections
Euporista literature: herb substitution lists
References in narrative sources

5. Drug classifications Simples: single- ingredient remedies
Compound drugs: made up of two or more substances; could be extremely complicated
Theriac
Mithridatum
Illustration of a pharmacy in the Italian Tacuinum sanitatis, 14th century.

6. Modern compound medicines
But there was one particular ingredient in what was originally labelled as Pemberton’s French Wine Cola that is definitely not included today ~ and that was an infusion of coca leaves.

7. Metrological Units in Early Medieval Recipe Collections
1 libra (pound)
= 12 unciae (ounces)
=24 semunciae (half-ounces)
= 96 dragmae (drachmas or drams)
= 288 scripula (scruples)

8. The Medieval Drug Trade
Bede (Northumbria, 8th century): distributed “linen, pepper and incense” at death
Bishop Cynehard’s request (8th century) for medical books and spices
Chlothar III of Franks ( ): granted Corbie 30 pounds of pepper and 150 pounds of cumin annually from royal warehouses
Willibald’s balsam-smuggling operation (8th century)

9. Exotic Products Alphabetum Galieni: 281 ingredients
50 provided with provenance
Additional 34 ingredients: the ”best” comes from a particular place
Rest of ingredients: “Known by everyone”
Attested Provenance
Egypt (16 ingredients)
India (12)
Pontus (10)
Gallia (10)
Arabia (8)

10. Did medieval drugs work?

11. AncientBiotics
University of Nottingham research team composed of Anglo-Saxonists and microbiologists
Recreated an Anglo- Saxon recipe drawn from Bald’s Leechbook intended for eye problems
Electron micrograph of Methicilin-Resistant Staphlococcus aureus being eaten by human neutrophil

12. Make an eyesalve against a wen: take equal amounts of cropleac and garlic, pound well together, take equal amounts of wine and oxgall, mix with the alliums, put this in a brass vessel, let stand for nine nights in the brass vessel, wring through a cloth and clarify well, put in a horn and at night apply to the eye with a feather; the best medicine. (Translation in Freya Harrison’s study, 2015)

13. A Recipe with a Large Shadow
AncientBiotics not the first to explore this recipe
Malcolm Cameron (1991): “likely to have been helpful”
Brennessel, Drout and Gravel (2004): recreated recipe but found opposite results of AncientBiotics
Recipe for an eye salve, from Bald’s Leechbook, England (Winchester?), mid-10th century, Royal MS 12 D XVII, f. 12v

14. Helen King’s critique
What are ingredients? Cropleac: alternately translated as leeks, shallots, garlic, onions – basically any onion-like thing
Modern bias regarding “improbable” vs. “feasible” remedies and ingredients
What is the original recipe supposed to treat?
How should we proceed? And how to think about medieval medical efficacy?
Narcosis and nightshade
Foxglove
Members of the Allium family of root vegetables

15. Next Class: Wed. November 1
“If these bones could talk”: Using Genetics as a Historical Source
Readings
Monica Green, “Genetics as a Historicist Discipline” [online]
Robin Fleming, “Bones for Historians” [PDF]
RECOMMENDED: Piers Mitchell, “Retrospective Diagnosis” [ejournal]
RECOMMENDED: Tony Waldron, “Epidemiology”
RECOMMENDED: Milner and Boldsen, “Life not Death”