A Pompeian herbal : ancient and modern medicinal plants / Wilhelmina Feemster Jashemski ; plant portraits by Victoria I and Lillian Nicholson Meyer ; photographs by Stanley A. Jashemski and others.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jashemski, Wilhelmina F. (Wilhelmina Feemster), 1910-2007.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Materia medica, Vegetable--Italy--Pompei.

Materia medica, Vegetable.

Medicinal plants--Italy--Pompei.

Medicinal plants.

Medicine, Greek and Roman.

Italy--Pompei.

Physical Description:

xiii, 107 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 26 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Austin : University of Texas Press, 1999.

Summary:

When workmen excavating the ruins of Pompeii eagerly gathered the native medicinal plants growing there, Wilhelmina Jashemski discovered that this was another example of the continuity of life in the shadow of Vesuvius. Many of the plants used for herbal medicine around Pompeii today are the same ones that ancient authorities such as Pliny the Elder and Dioscorides recommended for treating the same types of disorders.

In this book, Jashemski presents an herbal of thirty-six medicinal plants, most of them known to the ancients and still employed today. She describes each plant's contemporary medicinal uses and compares them to ancient practices as recorded in literary sources. Scientific, English, and Italian names and the plant's mythological associations complete the entries, while elegant, full-page portraits depict each plant visually. In her introduction, Jashemski also discusses the literary and archaeological sources used to construct the herbal, as well as the striking continuities between Roman and modern times that she has observed during more than forty years of archaeological exploration and discovery.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 95-97) and indexes.

ISBN:

0292740611

0292740603

OCLC:

40311597