Nicholas Culpeper Facts
Nicholas Culpeper Facts
|
Interesting Nicholas Culpeper Facts: |
---|
He was the son of a clergyman. |
After his graduation from Cambridge, he was apprenticed to an apothecary. |
After his marriage, he set up a pharmacy in London and provided his medicines for free to the indigent. |
He examined his patients in person rather than just examining their urine as was common at the time. |
He was accused of witchcraft by the Society of Apothecaries and in 1643 he joined the militia and acted as a battlefield surgeon at the Battle of Newbury. |
He was opposed to the tight control of medicine by the College of Physicians and their ban on the publication of medical texts. |
Culpepper translated medical and herbal texts from Latin into English and published them for use by those who could not afford a doctor. |
In 1652 he published his popular, The English Physician, which has been in continuous print. |
He tried to reform the practice of medicine and condemned such common practices as bloodletting. |
He was famous proponent of medical astrology which linked the efficacy of plants with the astrological influences on their planting and harvesting. |
Medical astrology associates the signs of the zodiac with various parts of the body. |
As an example Gemini was thought to control the arms, lungs, hands, nervous system and brain. |
Other astronomical bodies, like the sun, moon and planets were also thought to influence human physiology and play a role in disease. |
His work on herbal medicines was so influential that plants were sent from England to the Americas to be used in medicine. |
He described the use of foxglove in the treatment of heart disease. |
During his military service, he sustained a serious chest wound which may have contributed to his death from tuberculosis at the young age of 37. |
Related Links: Facts Scientists Facts Animals Facts |