16th-century Life Sciences

Part 1. Materia Medica and Herbals: Intro

An explosion of sixteenth-century herbals dramatically extended the “materia medica” traditon deriving from Dioscorides, assimilating a vast increase in the number of known plants. The history of these herbals is intimately linked with the history of printing: with woodblock prints and copper-plate etchings, illustrations were reproduced in hundreds of copies without distortion or loss of fine detail. Even in the early decades of printing, many herbals were illustrated, colored, and issued both in large folios and small, economical, hand-sized, field-guide formats. Important herbals in the holdings of the History of Science Collections include (among the many editions of Dioscorides) the Ortus sanitatus (1491) (Figure 1) (Figure 2) (Figure 3) (Figure 4) (Figure 5) , and the Herbarum vivae eicones of Otto Brunfels (illustrated by Hans von Weiditz, 1530).

Exhibit credit: Kerry Magruder.