TO HIS DEAREST CONSORT, 



MRS. ALICE CULPEPER. 



MY DEAREST, 



THE works that I have published to the world (though envied by some illiterate physicians) 

 have merited such just applause, that thou mayest be confident in proceeding to publish any 

 thing I leave thee, especially this master-piece ; assuring my friends and countrymen, that they 

 will receive as much benefit by this, as by my Dispensatory, and that incomparable piece, called, 

 Semiotica Uranica enlarged, and English Physician. 



These are the choicest secrets, which I have had many years locked up in my own breast. I gained 

 them by my constant practice, and by them I maintained a continual reputation in the world, and 

 I doubt not but the world will honour thee for divulging them ; and my fame shall continue and 

 increase thereby, though the period of my Life and Studies be at hand, and I must now bid all 

 things under the sun farewell. Farewell, my dear wife and child ; farewell, Arts and Sciences, 

 which I so dearly loved ; farewell, all worldly glories ; adieu, readers. 



NICHOLAS CULPEPER. 



NICHOLAS CULPEPER, the Author of this Work, was son of Nicholas Culpeper, a Clergyman, and 

 grandson of Sir Thomas Culpeper, Bart. He was some time a student in the university of Cam- 

 bridge, and soon after was bound apprentice to an Apothecary. He employed all his leisure hours 

 in the study of Physic and Astrology, which he afterwards professed, and set up business in Spital- 

 fields, next door to the Red Lion, (formerly known as the Half-way House between Islington and 

 Stepney, an exact representation of which we have given under our Author's Portrait), where he 

 had considerable practice, and was much resorted to for his advice, which he gave to the poor 

 gratis. Astrological Doctors have always been highly respected ; and those celebrated Physicians 

 of the early times, whom our Author seems tc have particularly studied, Hippocrates, Galen, and 

 Avicen, regarded those as homicides who were ignorant of Astrology. Paracelsus, indeed, went 

 farther ; he declared, a Physician should be predestinated to the core of his patient ; and the 

 horoscope should be inspected, the plants gathered at the critical moment, &c. 



Culpeper was a writer and translator of several Works, the most celebrated of which, is his Herbal, 

 " being an astrologo-physical discourse of the common herbs of the nation ; containing a complete 

 Method or Practice of Physic, whereby a Man may preserve his Body in Health, or cure himself 

 when sick, with such things only as grow in England, they being most fit for English Constitu- 

 tions." 



This celebrated, and useful Physician died at his house in Spitalfields, in the year 1654. This 

 Book will remain as a lasting monument of his skill and Industry. 



u Culpeper, the man that first ranged the woods and climed the mountains in search of medicinal and salutary herbs, 

 has undoubtedly merited the gratitude of posterity." DR. JOHNSON. 



