What’s a herbal?

A herbal is a book of plants, describing their appearance, their properties and how they may be used for preparing ointments and medicines. The medical use of plants is 1 on fragments of papyrus and clay tablets from ancient Egypt, Samaria and China that date back 5,000 years but document traditions far older still. Over 700 herbal remedies were detailed in the Papyrus Ebers, an Egyptian text written in 1500 BC.

Around 65 BC, a Greek physician called Dioscorides wrote an herbal that was 2 into Latin and Arabic. Known as ‘De material medica’, it became the most influential work on medicinal plants in both Christian and Islamic worlds until the late 17th century. An illustrated manuscript copy of the text made in Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) 3 from the sixth century. The first printed herbals date from the dawn of European printing in the 1480s. They provided valuable information for apothecaries, whose job it was to make the pills and potions 4 by physicians. In the next century, landmark herbals were produced in England by William Turner, considered to be the father of British botany, and John Gerard, whose illustrations would 5 the floral fabric, wallpaper and tile designs of William Morris four centuries later.