Pretty Medicine. Dianthus barbatus, Sweet William or Bearded Pink, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Between 1635 and 1637 about one-seventh of the population of Amsterdam succumbed to the plague. On the initiative of famous Dr Nicolaas Tulp - of Rembrandt's 'Anatomical Lesson' fame - the town council established a Hortus Medicus, later the Hortus Botanicus. That garden was to provide herbal medicine mandated for all the pharmacies of the city. Lists survive of the plants used, and one of these is the inventory compiled by Johannes Snippendaal in 1646; a recent editon of that work also indicates the plants in Dr Tulp's anonymously written Pharmacopoea of 1635.
Today pretty Sweet William, Dianthus barbatus, is said to have no medicinal use. But that was different in the seventeenth century: Abraham Munting (1626-1683), for example, professor of botany in Groningen, besides giving a full description of our bright plant, also has a listing of its uses. Among these he advises a concoction of its ground roots in wine as a medicine againt the plague.
Pretty Medicine. Dianthus barbatus, Sweet William or Bearded Pink, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Between 1635 and 1637 about one-seventh of the population of Amsterdam succumbed to the plague. On the initiative of famous Dr Nicolaas Tulp - of Rembrandt's 'Anatomical Lesson' fame - the town council established a Hortus Medicus, later the Hortus Botanicus. That garden was to provide herbal medicine mandated for all the pharmacies of the city. Lists survive of the plants used, and one of these is the inventory compiled by Johannes Snippendaal in 1646; a recent editon of that work also indicates the plants in Dr Tulp's anonymously written Pharmacopoea of 1635.
Today pretty Sweet William, Dianthus barbatus, is said to have no medicinal use. But that was different in the seventeenth century: Abraham Munting (1626-1683), for example, professor of botany in Groningen, besides giving a full description of our bright plant, also has a listing of its uses. Among these he advises a concoction of its ground roots in wine as a medicine againt the plague.