Old herbalists like Nicholas Culpeper are good to read, but you wouldn't say they were full of fun. Here at last is a pre-Culpeper man of herbs and medicine who actually cracks jokes. He is John Gerard. Well, at least, he made one joke in his monumental Historie of Plants. (The spelling in this edition, edited by Marcus Woodward, sticks closely to the original Elizabethan in spelling and construction). Here is the joke. "The root of Solomon's seale [you know the plant] stamped while it is fresh and greene, and applied, taketh away in one night, or two at the most, any bruise, blacke or blew spots gotten by fals orwomen's wilfulnesse, in stumbling upon their hasty husbands fists, or such like." The book, writes the editor and introducer, is "the most delightful, fragrant, and refreshing of all old-time herbals." Does anyone remember a fashionable drink or drink-cumherbage in a tankard, once a favourite of classy rowing men and other species. Among the greenery added to the tankard was always, in the best circles, we are told, that lovely herb, borage. The editor takes us through the more obvious attractions of the herb garden: sweet majoram for those who are given to overmuch sighing, the smell of basil is good for the heart, takes away sorrowfulness and makes a man merry and glad. Then referring to a tankard flavoured with borage: "I Borage/Bring alwaies Courage." John Gerard 1545-1611/12 held many high positions in life: he was elected in 1608 Master of the Barber-Surgeons Company.
He was good on the potato "a mean between flesh and fruit, but somewhat windie." Some eat them just roasted from the ashes and `sop them in wine' others boil them with prunes. "Notwithstanding however they be dressed, they comfort, nourish, and strengthen the body." Then he had a chapter "Of Tobaco, or Henbane of Peru." He tells you how to grow it from seed and quotes uses of the juice of the plant as a cure for sleeplessness and various maladies. The juice is the chief benefit, apparently, but "The dry leaves are used to be taken in a pipe set on fire and suckt into the stomacke, and thrust forth againe at the nostrils, against the paines in the head, rheumes, aches in any part of the body.. . " And it is here that you wonder if this isn't some literary hoax. No, Gerard's Herbal in this edition, published 1998 by Senate, a paperback, gives all the history of this landmark in publishing, away back to the first issue in 1597.