Nicholas Culpeper (1616 - 1654) was a botanist, herbalist, physician and astrologer. He was a rebel against the medical establishment; founding modern alternative medicine and the first to translate medical books from Latin into English, in order to break the unethical power of the mainstream physicians. The medical establishment operated a “closed shop” policy, keeping knowledge away from the public by use of Latin and high prices. They treated medicine as a commercial secret.

Culpeper’s “The Complete Herbal” has, after over 350 years, the distinction of being “one of the most popular and enduring books in publishing history, perhaps the non-religious book in English to remain longest in continual print,.” according to award winning journalist and Culpeper biographer Benjamin Woolley.

From his early teens, Culpeper was fascinated with herbalism and medicine. He had read William Turner’s “New Herbal” (1568) among other books, and familiarised himself with all the local herb species from his local county of Sussex.

Aged 16, Culpeper was sent to Cambridge University, in 1632. His mother and grandfather intended him to study theology and become a Minister, like his father who died just before Nicholas was born. Culpeper disliked this idea, preferring to attend lectures on anatomy and the materia medica of Galen and Hippocrates.

While Archbishop Laud implemented strict rules of (Catholic) worship and moral conduct at the university, Culpeper spent much time socialising in taverns, playing sport and swimming in the river. He dropped out of university without graduating. This resulted, after his fiance and his mother both died, in him being disinherited by his mother’s family.

Having lost his chance to become a Minister, as well as to study medicine at Cambridge, fate had perfectly positioned Culpeper to become an apothecary (the equivalent of a pharmacist, dispensing medicines). This he did under apprenticeship.

Culpeper ended up owning the apothecary in London, after the owner’s death. After later marrying a wealthy heiress, Alice Field, Culpeper built a house in London and set himself up in business as an astrologer and herbalist. He charged little or nothing to his patients, and never denied seeing anyone. Much of the time he helped those who were “disturbed by trouble of the Conscience or Sorrow,” by making them feel more hopeful. This helped secure a good reputation and popularity amongst the common people.

Culpeper had radical views, being a staunch republican and also having a determination to make medicine available to the public, so that they could administer to themselves. He claimed “no man deserved to starve to pay an insulting, insolent physician”, and always saw his patients in person, rather than merely examining urine. Culpeper disdained the practice of blood-letting. “They are bloodsuckers, true vampires who have learned little since Hippocrates”. Many modern medicines were highly toxic and it was only because the patients were from wealthy backgrounds that they were physically better nourished than other people and could sometimes recover.

Culpeper encountered much criticism and hostility from the medical establishment, even being accused of witchcraft during the early months of the English Civil War (in which he took Cromwell’s side and served as a field surgeon). The whole preoccupation with astrology was misguided and afforded an Achilles heel in Culpeper’s otherwise sensible herbalism. His contemporaries exploited this to some extent.

Culpeper was lucky to be able to take advantage of a small window (historically speaking) of crucial importance. There were twenty years, during his lifetime, when censorship of print was relaxed.

Before this, since 1603, all printing, selling and possession of books had to be approved by the scrutiny of the Church, in the “Star Chamber” of the “Company of Stationers”. The civil war ended this ecclesiastical censorship until two years following the restoration of Charles II; the Company of Stationers came back with a vengeance but Culpeper’s work had already flowered and they could not consign it easily to oblivion.

Herbalists today owe much to Culpeper, who helped to make herbalism a credible alternative to conventional medicine.

Culpeper’s works include:

A Physical Directory, or a Translation of the London Directory (1649) - translation of the Pharmacopoeia Londonesis of the Royal College of Physicians.

Directory for Midwives (1651)

Semeiotics Uranica (An Astrological Judgement of Diseases) (1651)

Catastrophe Magnatum (The Fall of Monarchy) (1652)

The English Physician (1652)

The Complete Herbal (1653)

A Treatise on Aururn Potabile (1656)