Unofficial but not unorthodox

Unofficial but not unorthodox

Recipe books were mostly produced by people who were not medical professionals. Despite this, the medicinal recipes they contain are largely based upon the same accepted medical theories and systems as the official treatments prescribed by doctors, such as astrology, and the theories of the Greek doctor Galen (129–216AD).

Astrology is the theory that the positions and movements of the stars, planets and moon govern our lives on earth. Astrology influenced medical thinking for centuries, from predicting an individual's future health outcomes, to identifying the best times to prepare and administer remedies and perform treatments.

Galenic theory sees connections between celestial bodies, our human bodies, our health and our environment. According to Galen, illness is caused by an imbalance in the body’s four vital elements of black bile, yellow bile, phlegm and blood. These must be rebalanced to restore health, ie through purging. Plant and animal ingredients are used in the remedies because of their purgative qualities, or because they are believed to directly affect the body’s humeral balance.

The contents of the recipe books show an appreciation of the holistic balance between health, food, and the living environment that drove Galen’s theories. Most recipes directly reference the same types of treatments used by doctors, such as bloodletting or purging, showing a level of mainstream medical knowledge that challenges the accepted view of ‘domestic’ medicine.