If you are like me the name Elizabeth Blackwell may sound familiar. I remember learning about her, or seeing her name somewhere- but likely that was the other Elizabeth Blackwell who in 1849 was the first woman to receive a medical degree in the US trailblazing the way for women to become doctors. The Elizabeth Blackwell I am writing about today lived almost 100 years earlier and was from England- she too had an influence on the practice of medicine in her time. She was the first woman to create an illustrated medical text, A Curious Herbal, which was published in 1737 and contained 500 illustrated plates.
Blackwell's book “The Curious Herbal” is notable both for its beautiful illustrations and for the unusual circumstances of its creation!
Elizabeth was born into the wealthy Blachrie family in Aberdeen (North East Scotland). Elizabeth Blachrie’s birth date is often contested but was likely around 1700. Her father’s wealth meant that she received a good education and a substantial dowry. Her education in the early eighteenth century would have likely included art, music and languages which Elizabeth was later put to use when creating her legacy. She married her 2nd cousin Alexander Blackwell when 28 who though trained in reading Greek and Latin but had no medical training, practiced as a physician in Aberdeen! They fled to live in London when this was called into challenge. Her husband seemed to have a talent for being involved in dodgy business practices and eventually found himself in the slammer or in the nick as they say in England!
At this point Elizabeth, who was described as an ‘ingenious lady’ decided to take it on herself to pay off his debts and secure his release. As mentioned above she had received some training in drawing and painting, whilst living with her family in Aberdeen which she had excelled in. She also shared her brother Alexander’s love of botany. She set to work on creating an herbal. In England at the time “herbals” were a close second to the Bible in popularity!
The Herbal was issued in weekly parts between 1737 and 1739, each section containing four illustrated plates and a page of text. Plants were described, as well as illustrated, in terms of:
where they could be found in which months of the year
what they look in terms of size and growth habit
which parts of the plant can be used - and for what purpose
the other names of the plant - in Greek, Latin, Spanish, Italian, French, German and Dutch
In order to develop the illustrations for the Herbal she examined and drew specimens of plants available in the Chelsea Physic Garden. She lived at 4 Swan Walk while drawing plants in the Physic Garden.
One of the notable things about her Herbal is that it immediately predates the Linnaean classification system - which did not yet exist. It's "birth" was located at the transition between two ways of categorizing plants - with this Herbal being one of the last of the old way to classify plants.
(Carl Linnaeus, the famous Swedish botanist, Carl Linnaeus, was (probably) born the same year as Blackwell, and following the publication of the Curious Herbal revolutionized taxonomy with his binomial nomenclature.) Carl Linnaeus gave her the affectionate nickname of Botanica Blackwellia
We will talk more about Linnaeus again near the end of this article because their lives crossroads in another funny way!
Elizabeth Blackwell is notable for being one of the first botanical artists to personally:
draw
etch and engrave and
hand colour colour her own designs.
This saved her money, as hiring a professional engraver as most would have done at the time, would have delayed her meeting her primary goal to helping free her husband!
Blackwell’s illustration of the dandelion (above left), a common wildflower used by apothecaries as a diuretic, describes the root as “about a finger thick and eight inches long full of a white bitter milk.” This substance found inside the whole plant was used to treat skin warts and corns. Blackwell also notes that dandelion leaves were “much eaten as a salad in the spring.” Just right for the edible garden of 1739!
Blackwell successfully marketed the book herself, by word of mouth and in journals. ‘A Curious Herbal, contains five hundred cuts of the most useful plants which are now used in the Practise of Physick, to which is added a short description of ye plants and their common uses in Physick’
After her husband's release from debtor's prison, and a few more sketchy business deals he moved to Sweden where it is said he became involved in a plot attempting to change the Swedish succession and was ultimately arrested and put to death!! Not a happy ending for Elizabeth who spend all that energy into creating the herbal tome in order to releasing him from prison! However a win for us herbalists!
Interesting Linnaeus may have played a part in the downfall of Blackwell's husband. He met him four years after Alexander Blackwell arrived in Sweden and was characterised by Linnaeus as "a bold atheistic ignoramus". Notes on how Linnaeus's commentary on Alexander may have contributed to his death can be found in Curious Herbal, Curious Tale by Gareth Evans.
Sadly, after the death of Alexander, Elizabeth disappears from the history books. It is possible that she fell back on her original training as a midwife. She appears to have had three children all of whom died young (William on the 3rd May 1736, Blanch Christian on the 11th May 1738 and Anne ‘Blackall’ who also died in 1738) .
She died in 1770 at 58. Her grave is in the churchyard at Chelsea Old Church.
The later US doctor Elizabeth Blackwell, hconsidered her a ‘physician-accoucheur worthy of all praise’. Certainly a pioneer in Herbalism and one who worked at the intersection of Art and Herbalism! I hope you enjoyed this little biography of one of the early women of herbalism.
There is an online e edition of the book “A Curious Herbal”
_______In other news: ______
The Art and Revolution of Self Care 2024
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Mind Memory Mycelium
A Celebration of Women (&NBA) in the book arts show
Mind Memory Mycelium opens at the APE Gallery in Northampton on Feb 21st with an artist reception on Friday Feb 23rd 5-8pm. I have been frantically preparing for the show and have been posting my 30 days count down preparation “journal entries” on my social media (fb/insta)
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