PHARMACEUTICALS

The British Pharmacopoeia

In 2010 The British Pharmacopoeia included stout, brandy, and sherry as remedies.

Herbalists

With the Dissolution of the Monasteries (1536-41), considerable knowledge about the practical use of plants was dissipated.

Website: www.herbalhistory.org

Nicholas Culpeper

Nicholas Culpeper's herbal works were astrological in character, whereas John Parkinson's were practical.

Website: www.kew.org/read-and-watch/nicholas-culpeper-and-his-herbal

John Gerard

Thomas Johnson updated John Gerard's (c.1545-1612) Herball (1597). He drew on John Parkinson's then unpublished researches.

John Parkinson

John Parkinson was an apothecary and herbalist. He never left England but was fascinated with the new plants that were being encountered in the Americas and Asia. His masterworks were Paradisi In Sole: Paradisus Terrestris (1629) and Theatrum Botanicum (1638). These were practical in nature (whereas Nicholas Culpeper's herbal works was astrological in character).

Location: Long Acre, WC2E 9LH. Parkinson had a two-acre garden in the western section Long Acre.

Website: www.herbalhistory.org/home/sources-for-a-study-of-the-herbalist-and-gardener-john-parkinson-1567-1650 https://kingscollections.org/exhibitions/specialcollections/fruits-of-the-earth-plants-inthe-service-of-mankind/from-herbal-to-botany/john-parkinson

Interferon

In 1957 Alick Isaacs (1921-1967) and Jean Lindemann (1924-2015) discovered interferon while working at the National Institute for Medical Research's Mill Hill facility. It is a family of proteins that are released when animal cells are attacked by pathogens. They helped protected other cells from attack. Its economical manufacture only became possible in 1980.

Location: The Ridgeway, Mill Hill, NW7 1AA

Website: www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/cancer-in-general/treatment/cancer-drugs/drugs-interferon

Dr James's Fever Powder

Dr Robert James went to school with Samuel Johnson in Lichfield and remained a life-long friend. He devised Dr James s Fever Powder. Johnson introduced him to the bookseller John Newbery who acquired a stake in the property and became its agent.

Following Dr James's death in 1773 Dr Johnson wrote a tract against one of Powder's would be imitators.

Newberry s descendants still owned the Powder in 1910.

Location: Southampton Street, WC2E 7PP (purple, brown)

Laudanum

In about 1660 the physician Thomas Sydenham standardised laudanum as a cure-all.

In 1794 opium poppies were grown commercially in Britain for the first time. Soon afterwards Thomas Jones established a large poppy growing business in Enfield. The needs of the British military during the Napoleonic Wars made him a wealthy man.

Opium became widely available in tinctures. It was mixed with alcohol to make laudanum and kendal black drop.

Quinine

The cinchona tree is native to South America. Kew Gardens was central to its being distributed around the world.

David Backhouse 2024