This excellent book I cannot recommend highly enough. It is an academic (but not very dryly academic) compilation of lore related to medical history, alchemy, and the apothecary, spanning centuries, with an especial focus on the period of roughly the mid 16th to early 19th centuries.
It contains entire recorded lists of apothecarial goods available in then-contemporary shops, analysis of the usage of herbal and alchemical lore in fictional works by Shakespeare, Dickens, Spenser, Dumas, and others, and a great number of illustrations, which have been reworked and expanded upon by Raven Feather Illustrations. From amulets and toad-stones to love philtres and mummy powder, this work contains a vast trove of knowledge on the subject.
249 pages.
No comments:
Post a Comment