Hildegard of Bingen, MD

Hildegard of Bingen (1098 - 1179) has been discussed here before, and many know her as a nun and composer of devotional music. Her compositions have been adapted by numerous musical and spiritual groups. Among her writings, however, were also works about the natural world and medicine.

Two works in particular date to the 1150s. Physica ["Physics," or "The Physical World"] is her attempt to explain the whole world from the elements (the four: earth, air, fire, water) to all animals and plants, and even metals and stones, both ordinary and precious gems. One theme that runs through this work is the Genesis-based idea that Man has been given dominion over all the Earth. Everything on Earth has been put there by God, and therefore everything has value, and therefore Man can benefit from everything God put on Earth, from nourishment found in plants and animals to the material value of gems.

The other book was Causæ et Curæ ["Causes and Cures"]. In it, she lists 47 different diseases. Whereas in Physica she listed 200 herbs and other plants, in Causæ et Curæ she describes over 300 plants that are useful for medical use. She might not have had personal experience of all these, since she would have had access to standard texts from such as Pliny and Galen and Isidore of Seville. She wouldn't be the first or last to borrow from Pliny and the others.

She would not, however, give medicines the final say in the treatment of illness:

Hildegard gave physical events, moral truths, and spiritual experiences equal weight. Healing was both medical and miraculous, and God’s will was an important element in her remedies. “These remedies come from God and will either heal people or they must die, for God does not wish them to be healed,” she wrote. [source]

It wasn't just up to God and the herbals. She also believed in using rituals bordering on the magical as part of the healing process. She claimed betony leaves placed next to the bed would reduce bad dreams. Sadness could be countered by mandrake: mandrake she believed was made from the same earth that made Adam. If a sad man dug up a mandrake root, washed it in a fountain for 24 hours, then took it to bed, he could alleviate his depression after reciting: “God, who madest man from the dust of the earth without grief, I now place next me that earth which has never transgressed in order that my clay may feel that peace just as Thou didst create it.” [source] And marshmallow (the plant, not the sweet confection made from it) could counteract evil magic!

Marshmallow

Yes, marshmallow. (Maybe Halloween has put me in mind of sweets.)

Althaea officinalia (the "marsh mallow") is a perennial that grows wild in salty marshes. Egyptians discovered that the root contained a sweet sap that could be used to sweeten cakes. The delicacy was reserved for Pharaohs.

The Greco-Roman world embraced the substance in mallows and believed it had medicinal value. The 1st century Dioscorides (cribbing from Pliny) wrote:

boiled in ... wine or chopped on its own, it works against wounds, tumors of the parotid gland[*], swellings in the glands of the neck, abcesses, inflamed breasts, inflammations of the anus, bruises, swellings, tensions of the sinews ... It works also against dysentery, blood loss and diarrhoea. [Hippocratic Recipes: Oral and Written Transmission of Pharmacological Knowledge in Fifth- and Fourth-century Greece, p.264]

Medieval Europe, willing to try anything suggested by the Classical world, discovered how sweet the mallow concoctions were and started using them as a sweet treat—with the bonus of them being healthful. An Italian cookbook of the 1400s—De Honesta Voluptuate et Valetudine [On Right Pleasure and Good Health], by Bartolomeo Platina—suggested several ways to season the substance. Medieval monks grew the mallow for its sweetness and medical properties. Herbalists turned it into treatments for sore throats and coughs, indigestion and toothache.

The marshmallow sap was used for liquids in the Middle Ages; it was 19th century French confectioners who whipped it into a solid candy by mixing it with egg whites and corn syrup. Nowadays it can be made without any recourse to the mallow plant. My personal favorite recipe is here (you would be surprised how easy it is to make, and how sticky it is to work with after it has "set"). If you would rather make it from actual marshmallow root, go here.

*The "parotid gland" is a salivary gland in the back of the mouth.