The History of Domestic Plant Medicine

The debt owed to botany by medicine is not commonly appreciated. In the past, medicine relied almost entirely on plants, and even today, many western medicines are plant-derived. Historians have largely neglected domestic medicine in favour of ‘official medicine’.

Although an impressive amount of information is available in primary sources, both within record offices and in private hands, relatively little has been published on British domestic plant medicine. The author has gathered a wealth of material from manuscripts, letters, diaries and personal interviews. This book brings together this information, using it to produce a vivid and detailed picture of the use of domestic remedies in Britain from 1700 to the present day.

It draws upon oral history and manuscript sources to record for posterity this neglected aspect of our heritage. Much of this has never been published before, and little modern material has been written down, and is in danger of disappearing altogether when the current generation of elderly people dies out. This book is a valuable contribution to the study of the folklore of modern Britain and is a fascinating piece of social history.