The complete herbalist, or, the people their own physicians by the use of nature's remedies showing the great curative properties of all herbs, gums, balsams, barks, flowers and roots ; how they should be prepared, when and under what influences selected, at what times gathered, and for what diseases administered. Also, separate treatises on fod and drinks ; clothing ; exercise ; the regulation of the passions, life, health, and disease; longevity; medication; air and sunshine ; bathing ; sleep, etc. Also, symptoms of prevalent diseases ; special treatment in special cases; and a new and plain system of hygienic principles / by O. Phelps Brown.

  • Brown, O. Phelps (Oliver Phelps), active 1871.
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The complete herbalist, or, the people their own physicians by the use of nature's remedies showing the great curative properties of all herbs, gums, balsams, barks, flowers and roots ; how they should be prepared, when and under what influences selected, at what times gathered, and for what diseases administered. Also, separate treatises on fod and drinks ; clothing ; exercise ; the regulation of the passions, life, health, and disease; longevity; medication; air and sunshine ; bathing ; sleep, etc. Also, symptoms of prevalent diseases ; special treatment in special cases; and a new and plain system of hygienic principles / by O. Phelps Brown. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    derive instruction for the proper regulatiou or government of our own organisms. The causes—whether planetary or other- ^•isc—which influence the growth and development of plants, are conditions necessary to be understood, iu order to preserve ihe health or integrity of our systems. Dependent upon the causes I have ah-eady named, the plan!s, also, may lose their medicinal virtues; while much will be owing to the season of the year when they are gathered, iu order to adapt them to medical purposes, For instance, in the Spring of the year, the common Nettle plant may atFord a palatable food for man, but if selected at a later period, instead of serving as a savory vegetable, or puri- fier of morbid elements from the blood and system of man, might be converted into, or act as a virulent or dangerous poison upon his organism. ]n China the Ginseng plant or root is regarded—weight for ■weight—as silver, for medicinal purposes; whereas the same herb grown in America, or other countries, does not possess a tithe of the value of the Chinese production for healing purposes. There must be, therefore, I repeat, a combination of influences to ensure the full development or perfection of any plant. There must be not only internal but external stimuli, to develop the virtues of the herb. The external, as we have seen, consists of certain nutritions matters contained in the soil, water, atmos- pheric gases, electricity, light and heat, besides the elements of oxygen, both in its combined or simple form, nitrogen, etc. If we take a Ftem cut from a pine tree, in the forests of North Carolina, and place it in contact with the trunk of a healthy growing pine, the former would destroy the latter in the course of the season. The worms generated in the severed or decayed stem will pass to the living tree, and rapidly cause its destruc- tion. Any farmer knows that if the lordly oak be felled in June, it will pass into a complete state of decay in the course of from four to eight weeks, but if it be cut down at a proper season, it affords the best timber for the building of ships.