All was kept in secret
‘all was kept in secret until..’
Official medical knowledge was restricted and closely guarded at this time. Before industrialisation brought large populations into urban areas, doctors were too few and very expensive – only the wealthy could access their services.
Medical practice was hierarchical. At the top, physicians (doctors) were university-educated and passed examinations to be qualified to diagnose and prescribe treatments and medicines. Their knowledge and profession was protected by their representative body, the College of Physicians, which published textbooks in Latin so only highly educated readers could understand them.
Lower on the hierarchy, apothecaries and barber-surgeons learned through apprenticeships. They were limited to carrying out the prescriptions and treatments that doctors prescribed, and were punished by the College of Physicians if they attempted to diagnose or advise.
Despite this, medical knowledge was becoming more obtainable. Apothecaries risked prosecution to prescribe affordable medicines; unqualified local healers used skills learned through observation and experience, and doctors’ prescriptions were passed on for reuse. Together, these created a healthcare network that was accessible to wider communities.
One doctor in particular, Nicholas Culpeper (1616–1654), was determined to make protected medical knowledge accessible to the non-professional population.
A Physicall Directory by Nicholas Culpeper 1649
Highlights
In 1649 the College of Physicians published an official list of the approved medicinal drugs, with their effects and directions for use, that doctors could prescribe. The Pharmacopoeia Londinensis was written in Latin, . Most academic texts at this time were written in Latin.
To the frustration of the College of Physicians, botanist and doctor Nicholas Culpeper (1616–1654) produced an English translation. He revealed the physicians’ list of approved ingredients and included additional instructions on how to administer them.
MS654 Book of medical recipes, Sarah Wigges, 1616
Sarah Wigges owned, and possibly wrote, this book which states ‘Nico. Culpeper found ye virtues of Flos Ungunetum [the flower of ointments] in an old manuscript’.
The author was aware of Culpeper’s translation, A physicall directory, which became an accessible resource for medical information within the ‘unofficial’ medical community.
https://archive.org/details/ms-654-full_202401
MS499 Recipe book, Madame Pyne, 1644
This book includes a prescription in Latin for ‘Vatican pills’, ‘very good against the paine in the head’, prescribed by ‘Dr Shelden…to Miss Fell......The Apothecary who makes them best lives in the old Baily at the Signe of the three black Lyons his name is Smith’. They point out that using the name of the original patient, Sir Robert Filmor, means the pills can be purchased from that apothecary without showing the recipe.
https://archive.org/details/ms-499-full
Further resources
Medical professions have changed and developed over the last 500 years. Visit our Timeline to see how the main medical professions have developed.
https://history.rcplondon.ac.uk/what-is-a-physician
Digitised copies of all our recipe books are available online via the Internet Archive
https://archive.org/details/rcplondonmanuscripts
Please be aware these books contain descriptions of animal cruelty.
