The Injurious and Curative Powers of Herbs: Shakespeare in Herb Gardens

Abstract

For Galen, the best physician was the one who was able to treat his patients by means other than the knife, particularly through diet and drugs. The fact that basic knowledge of pharmacology was not required came under severe criticism in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. To remedy this situation, herb gardens were established at universities. Some physicians wrote voluminous new herbals based both on the close study of classical pharmacological works, observations and experiments. William Turner (1508–1568), Henry Lyte (1529–1607), John Gerard (1545–1650) and John Parkinson (1567–1650) were the essential figures who established English herbal tradition. This phenomenon was not entirely alien to Shakespeare. The study of tragedies, as presented in this paper, is sufficient to realise how numerous references to both healing and poisonous plants are made in Shakespearean plays.