The Thinking Press

Published today: The Magical World of the Heroes, Cesare della Riviera's Il Mondo Magico de gli Heroi (Milan, 1605), translated by B. C. P. Statema. Alchemy read as an inner discipline. In hardcover from the press. thethinkingpress.org/project/magical-world-of-the-heroes #booksky #earlymodern

Culpeper puts it under the Moon, and repeats the old use against adders: the juice and seed taken in wine help those bitten “by preserving the heart from the venom.” Cleavers (Galium aparine), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/cleavers #history #histsci

Stuart: It was said to have been brought to China by General Chang Chien of the Han dynasty, its foreign origin shown by the several ways of writing its Chinese name. Lucerne (Medicago sativa), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/lucerne 🗃️ #history #histsci

Pasqua Rosée: The merchant’s servant who ran London’s first coffee house printed a handbill, The Vertue of the Coffee Drink, listing its cures. Coffee (Coffea arabica), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/coffee #history #histsci

From the founder's library: The Three Habits of the Condemned. The san-benito, the fuego revolto and the samarra, the garments of those the Spanish Inquisition sentenced, by how near each came to the fire. In the Illustration Archive: thethinkingpress.org/illustrations 🗃️ #history #bookhistory

G. H. Schubert, The Symbolism of Dreams (1814): “When she woke from that state she was startled, and knew nothing more of all that had gone on with her.” From 6. Echo. thethinkingpress.org/translations/symbolism-of-dreams/excerpts 💙📚 #c19th #bookhistory

Charles F. Millspaugh: A native especially of the Ohio valley, flowering from March to May, grown in a protected place in Central Park but not hardy north of Cincinnati. Pawpaw (Asimina triloba), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/pawpaw 🗃️ #history #histsci

A symbol I keep returning to. The lamp is consciousness as one can carry it: small, human, enough to see the next step. The Lamp (The lantern), in Symbols of the Psyche: thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/lamp #Jung #folklore

This is why I like writing the Materia Medica: It was called black snakeroot, Grieve says, to tell it from the common snakeroot, Aristolochia serpentaria. Black cohosh (Actaea racemosa), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/black-cohosh 🗃️ #history #histsci

Celsus gives horehound juice for a dry cough and for ulceration of the throat, and Columella gives the juice to kill worms in calves and in the ulcers of oxen. Horehound (Marrubium vulgare), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/horehound #history #histsci

Horace: “Let him make a voyage [then] to Anticyra,” the town on the Gulf of Corinth famous for its hellebore, whose name became a byword for a cure for madness. Black hellebore (Helleborus niger), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/black-hellebore 🗃️ #history #histsci

I did not expect this when I wrote up couch grass: Dogs, Grieve explains, chew its rough leaves to make themselves vomit, which gave the name dog’s-grass. Couch grass, in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/couch-grass #history #histsci

Culpeper: Under “Meadow Trefoil, or Honeysuckles,” which he says are so well known, white and red, that he need not describe them, Culpeper gives the plant to Mercury. Red clover (Trifolium pratense), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/red-clover 🗃️ #history #histsci

An 1893 engraving, from the founder's library: The Dragon of Cadmus. The dragon devouring the companions of Cadmus, from Ovid. In the Illustration Archive: thethinkingpress.org/illustrations 🗃️ #history #bookhistory

Spent a while on cherry stalks today. Culpeper’s and Dioscorides’ claims are for the fruit and the gum of the tree; the European monograph is for the stalks alone. Cherry stalks, in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/cherry-stalks #history #histsci

Oats had a poor name in Rome: Folkard quotes Pliny’s Primum omnium frumenti vitium Avena est, the first disease of corn is the oat. Oat (Avena sativa), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/oat 🗃️ #history #histsci

One from the Materia Medica I keep coming back to. Charlemagne: Lovage is among the plants the Capitulare de villis orders to be grown on the royal estates. Lovage (Levisticum officinale), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/lovage 🗃️ #history #histsci

Mrs. M. Grieve: “There are records that it was used in the thirteenth century by the Welsh ‘Physicians of Myddfai.’” Bearberry (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/bearberry #history #histsci

I did not expect this when I wrote up elder: Martin Blochwich wrote an entire book on the elder, the Anatomia Sambuci, englished as The Anatomie of the Elder (1644, and again 1670). Elder (Sambucus nigra), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/elder 🗃️ #history #histsci

Reading the old authorities on peppermint again. Mrs. M. Grieve: Ray first recognised it as a distinct species in 1696, and it entered the London Pharmacopoeia in 1721. Peppermint, in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/peppermint #history #histsci

Culpeper: “A fine soft pleasing herb under the dominion of the Moon,” Culpeper writes, as effectual as purslane for all its purposes “except for meat only.” Chickweed (Stellaria media), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/chickweed 🗃️ #history #histsci

The Pen-ts’ao, as G. A. Stuart reports it: Porter Smith had mistaken the kou-chi for a barberry; Stuart sets it right as a solanaceous shrub. Goji berry (Lycium barbarum), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/goji-berry #history #histsci

Spent a while on ginkgo today. Stuart: The Chinese said that seeds with three ridges grew into male trees and those with two into female, so both kinds should be planted together. Ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/ginkgo 🗃️ #history #histsci

King’s American Dispensatory: “The physiological action of passiflora has not been well-studied.” Passionflower (Passiflora incarnata), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/passionflower #history #histsci

Weathercocks, slippers, quick-in-the-hand: the names are all about the pod that leaps apart when touched, and the jewel is the water that beads on the leaf. Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/jewelweed 🗃️ #history #histsci

What Densmore heard was a proverb and a song: take some Juneberries with you. Juneberry (Amelanchier canadensis), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/juneberry 🗃️ #history #histsci

Exodus: A bunch of hyssop was dipped in the blood of the Passover lamb to mark the doorposts. Hyssop (Hyssopus officinalis), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/hyssop #history #histsci

Reading the old authorities on sumac again. C. S. Rafinesque: “All the species medical, two series of them. 1. Harmless. 2. Poisonous.” Sumac, in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/sumac 🗃️ #history #histsci

Culpeper: “Mars owns the shrub, and presents it to the use of my countrymen to purge their bodies of choler.” Barberry (Berberis vulgaris), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/barberry #history #histsci

The goat carries the untamed vitality of nature, and Christianity made it the devil’s animal. The Goat, in Symbols of the Psyche: thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/goat 🗃️ #Jung #MythologyMonday

Culpeper sets it under Venus, and says it is “a general strengthener of their wombs,” and that the herb bruised and applied to the wrists takes away the fits of an ague. Feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/feverfew #history #histsci

An 1893 engraving, from the founder's library: The Burning of Joan of Arc. Joan at the stake in a mitre lettered “Jehanne,” a friar holding up the cross, clergy in mitres watching from a stand. In the Illustration Archive: thethinkingpress.org/illustrations 🗃️ #history #bookhistory

Linnaeus named the tree Cinchona in 1742 in honour of the Countess of Chinchón, who by the legend accepted in Europe was cured of a fever by the bark in Peru. Cinchona, in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/cinchona #history #histsci

One from the Materia Medica I keep coming back to. King’s American Dispensatory (1898): “It was discovered by James Cook, the celebrated explorer, in 1769, in the Tahiti Islands.” Kava (Piper methysticum), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/kava 🗃️ #history #histsci

Dioscorides says stoichas grows in the islands near Massalia called the Stoechades, “which is how it got its name,” and gives a decoction of it for disorders of the chest. Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/lavender #history #histsci

I did not expect this when I wrote up witch hazel: The name Hamamelis, Grieve says, was taken from a Greek word for its likeness to an apple tree. Witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/witch-hazel 🗃️ #history #histsci

Last hours of the launch-day sale: The Magical World of the Heroes in hardcover, $63.99 until midnight Central, with free US shipping. Every copy bought on the site comes with its ebook and audiobook, where the press has one. thethinkingpress.org/project/magical-world-of-the-heroes #booksky

One of the press's projects: G. H. Schubert's The Symbolism of Dreams, from 1814, now in English. Among its parts: The Hidden Poet; Of a Babylonian Confusion of Languages; Echo. 4 of its 12 parts are free to read. thethinkingpress.org/translations/symbolism-of-dreams 💙📚 💡📚 #c19th

The name is a farmer’s complaint: its long, thickly matted root, Grieve says, “will arrest the progress of the harrow.” Rest-harrow (Ononis spinosa), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/rest-harrow 🗃️ #history #histsci

From the Symbolarium, on the Dragon: The dragon joins serpent, bird, and beast of prey, and is the classic guardian of the treasure and of the captive maiden. The Dragon (Draco), in Symbols of the Psyche: thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/dragon 🗃️ #Jung #folklore

On the shelf beside Jung's Aion and Symbols of Transformation, The Red Book and Campbell's Masks of God: della Riviera's The Magical World of the Heroes, written for the “Heroe” on an inward path of self-transformation, with Canale's On the Manner of Discerning and Healing the Bewitched. #booksky

Dioscorides describes kardamomon brought from Armenia and the Bosporus, though whether his plant was ours is uncertain. Cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/cardamom #history #histsci

An 1893 engraving, from the founder's library: The Judgment of God. Two men fighting inside the lists, the single combat to be decided by the judgment of God. In the Illustration Archive: thethinkingpress.org/illustrations 🗃️ #history #bookhistory

One from the Materia Medica I keep coming back to. The Germans call it Judenkirsche, the Jews’ cherry, and Schlutte. Ground cherry (Physalis), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/ground-cherry #history #histsci

Della Riviera, p. 167: “In three manners, writes St Bonaventure in the second of the Sentences, it is permitted by God to the false Demons to foretell future events, although not infallibly, that belonging to the divine Omnipotence alone, as has been said above.” #earlymodern #histsci

Hippocrates names phu among the remedies, and Galen prescribes it for sleeplessness: the oldest medical use of the root is the one it still has. Valerian (Valeriana officinalis), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/valerian 🗃️ #history #histsci

The European Medicines Agency’s assessment report (2021): European interest began with the scientific work of the Dutchman Van Itallie in 1886. Java tea (Orthosiphon aristatus), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/java-tea #history #histsci

Dioscorides records the saying that the fresh plant brought into a house “does not allow fleas to breed,” and lists herba pulicaria among its other names. Psyllium (Plantago ovata), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/psyllium 🗃️ #history #histsci

Grieve: The moistened bark could be moulded into pessaries, teats, and suppositories, and it was said to keep fats from going rancid. Slippery elm (Ulmus rubra), in the Materia Medica: thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/slippery-elm #history #histsci

The launch-day sale now includes the pre-order of Scherner's Discoveries in the Realm of the Soul: $75.99 instead of $94.99, until midnight Central. Each copy is set aside and posted on November 1, the day of release. thethinkingpress.org/project/life-of-the-dream #booksky