Johannes de Cuba, Ortus sanitatis
(Strassburg: [Johann Pruss], c.1497 and c.1500)
The Ortus sanitatis is an important early herbal. There is some debate about the identity of the author but it seems most likely that it was the town-physician of Frankfurt, Dr. Johann Wonnecke von Caub (also known as de Cuba). The work contains many pictures of plants, animals, birds, fishes, mer-people and stones. When it was published, people believed that animals and plants were on earth to provide cures for diseases, hence the title Hortus sanitatis, ‘The garden of health’. The illustrations, although rather rudimentary, are reasonably faithful to reality and were re-used many times in other works. One is an alternative to the College’s emblem of a centaur, this time reversed - a man with the head of ass.
This almanac dates from the 15th century. It was used in medicine to determine how severe the condition was, how long it would last and what the physician could do to treat it.
It had a limp binding, usually seen in commonplace books and other more disposal or ephemeral publications. Almanacs were designed to be portable – they were often carried around by doctors to allow them to check the positions of the stars when making a diagnosis.
Each part of the body was associated with an astrological sign and the timing of treatments would also coincide with these signs. Gemini, for example, was associated with arms. So you shouldn’t treat conditions of the arms during June.
This is a Vapo-Cresolene lamp. This was a 19th century invention where a small flame was used to vaporise the chemicals in coal tar. It was used as a treatment for chest complaints including bronchitis and asthma. In 1908 its efficacy was debunked but it continued to be used into the 1950s.
Bernhard Siegfried Albinus was a medical professor at Leiden university in the Netherlands. In the “Account of the Work” at the beginning of this book Albinus gives a detailed explanation of the methods he used to prepare his skeleton and muscle-men for illustration. He drew skeletons with their ligaments still connecting, at night he made incisions and poured water into the joints and wrapped them in rags drenched in vinegar. For support he used a tripod as well as numerous cords passed through the spine, arms, and legs that were then attached to his walls and ceiling. After making minor adjustments with pieces of paper and wood, he explains how he checked the accuracy of the skeleton’s pose, getting a thin man to strip naked and stand in the same position, in order to compare.
Concerned about perspective-induced errors, Albinus came up with a system to avoid this. He set a frame directly in front of the skeleton divided by a grid made of string. The same pattern of squares was drawn onto a piece of paper. He detailed exact angle from which to view the skeleton when drawing as well as the precise distance. He called his method ‘architectonic’ because architects worked in a similar way.
Wells, ponds and other small accumulations of water were often a focus of folk treatments, either as cure-alls, or specific to individual complaints. One might be recommended as a cure for sore eyes, whilst another considered effective against warts. Visitors bathed in them, drank the water or ritualistically washed their charms.
Clootie wells are found in Scotland, Ireland and Cornwall in England. Many date back to pre-Christian times.
A ‘cloot’ is a strip of cloth or rag. The cloot is dipped in the well and then tied to a tree – with the hope that the person’s sickness will fade as the cloot degrades. According to tradition, if you remove a rag you will become afflicted with the disease of its original owner.
These x-rays were taken by James Gifford in 1896. These are some of the first x-rays made in Britain.
Gifford was the son of James Benjamin Gifford, the prosperous owner of a lace factory he founded in the 1840s, moving it to Chard in 1856. Gifford was to follow his father into the family business.
Besides his everyday occupation, Gifford had several serious scientific interests, including astronomy, microscopy and x-rays.
These sketches and letters were created by William Blacklock after he was admitted to the Crichton asylum in Dumfries. Blacklock was an established artist long before he was committed. He had exhibited at the Royal Academy and provided engravings for Sir Walter Scott's Waverley novels.
The Crichton asylum was renowned for its use of art as a form of therapeutics and patients such as Blacklock were encouraged to continue their work while they were there.
Blacklock’s drawings while in institutional care were quite different from his earlier work. One of these, shown here, depicts a landscape containing what looks like a ruined building. On closer inspection the tower appears to be partially made of people.
Works by Blacklock are held in the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the National Gallery of Ireland.
Ebenezer Sibly gained his medical qualification at King’s College, Aberdeen. However, there is no evidence that he actually studied there, ‘mail order’ medical qualifications being common at the time.
Sibly sold a patent medicine which he called a ‘reanimating tincture’, which he marketed as being able to bring you back from the dead. To create an air of respectability, Sibly claimed that he was a member of the Royal College of Physicians of Aberdeen – an organisation which was unlikely to refute his claim given that it never actually existed.
James Graham was born in Edinburgh in 1745. Just to give you an insight into his work, his occupation is given on Wikipedia as ‘Sexologist’. Graham studied medicine at Edinburgh university but did not graduate. Graham started out as a performer on the Royal Mile, where he demonstrated his cures while wearing a silver suit. He also saw patients at his home, and his entrance hall was described as littered with crutches and canes supposedly thrown away by his instantaneously cured patients.
Eventually Graham settled in London, where he set up three different so-called Temples of Healing, each successively less opulent as his money ran out.
The original source of the phrase ‘bruised reeds’ is Biblical, referring to the kindness of Jesus…
He will not quarrel or cry aloud,
nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets;
a bruised reed he will not break,
and a smouldering wick he will not quench
These Bruised Reeds are not Biblical, however. They are patients, inmates during the late 1800s at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital - the city’s main asylum.
The title ‘bruised reeds’ is a contemporary one - etched on the cover of a bound volume of drawings of patients at the asylum.
The first page of the volume is fittingly illustrated with a depiction of such reeds, alongside a raven and an overcast moon. The inclusion of the moon may be a reference to the historical association between phases of the moon and mental health - the origin of the terms ‘lunacy’ and ‘moonstruck’.
This collection of illustrations is particularly unusual because it is an example of artwork where both the subjects and the artist were asylum patients.
The artist was John Miles (also referred to as Myles), who was admitted to the Royal Edinburgh Hospital in 1881.
A free museum and library exploring the science and humanity of medicine at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh
