Manuscript 459 from the Casanatense Library, known as Historia Plantarum (published by Franco Cosimo Panini in a superb facsimile edition), includes and deals, in a systematic and comprehensive manner, with plants, animals and minerals with respect to their pharmacological qualities and their therapeutic properties.
In leafing through this Code, compiled towards the end of the fourteenth century at the court of Gian Galeazzo Visconti for Wenceslaus IV, king of Bohemia, anybody would feel their hands shake confronted with the beauty of so many pictures and with the depth of the medical and philosophical knowledge displayed.
The illustrations, of varying naturalistic levels, often display scientific autonomy in completing the text, whereas the medical material, divided into alphabetical sections, is dealt with through the philosophic and scientific approach of the ancient Auctores (Hippocrates, Celsus, Galen, Theophrastus, Dioscoridis), mediated by the precepts of the Schola Salernitana, of the Arabs and of the Alchemists.
Thanks to the extraordinary richness of the sources contributing to this work, and to the Author’s ability in coordinating and interpenetrating them, this Code has become a Summa medica that is eternally topical. Indeed, many prescriptions can still be of benefit today, if you are looking for an astringent for the intestine or, vice versa, for a laxative, if you need to relieve bowel disorders, to facilitate expectoration, to relieve toothache, to treat inflammation of the conjunctivae, to regularise the menstrual flow, to eliminate gravel, to heal wounds or sores, to relieve articular or muscular pain, to lower the temperature or overcome the various ailments of everyday life.
The value of this work also originates from the enclosed illustrations (plants, animals, minerals, various tools, scenes of everyday life, pictures of sages and healers, architectural and floral patters, phitomorphic decorations), put together thanks the talent of Giovannino de’ Grassi, of his son Salomone and of his workshop assistants. In addition to the medicinal herbs and plants, the Author deals, to a more limited extent, with those of an animal and mineral origin. Indeed the drugs described, in addition to the herbs, to their decoctions in water or wine, to their macerations in wine, oil or vinegar, to their mixtures with various fats, to their powders mixed in various ways and to their fomentations, provide for the possible resort to macerations and powders from animal organs, to extracts and powders from minerals and to organic secretions and excretions.
In reading the Code, the following emerges:
* Agrimony ( Agrimonia eupatoria L.) is useful against any kind of cutaneous lesions: wounds, sores, bites and pustules; it is also useful against inflammations of the conjunctivae and, cooked in wine, in fighting internal organ disorders.
* Aloe (Aloe spp.) displays, amongst its many virtues, one in particular, that is a depurating and draining property, which in fact condenses all the others in the Hippocratic theory of the four humours. The Code reads Alloen virtutem habet purgandi flemmam et mundificandi melanconiam. Aloe contributes to the preservation of eucrasia, by maintaining a harmonic proportion among blood, phlegm, bile and melancholy, from whose union the individual temperament derives. Today phitotherapy ascribes to aloe the ability to preserve homeostasis in the field of each individual person.
* Borage (Borrago officinalis L.) has a calming effect, it depurates the organism from the troubles caused by the melancholic humour and cruda bonum sanguinem generat. It is still appreciated for its diaphoretic, pectoral, depurative and diuretic properties.
* Burdock (Arctium lappa L.), also known as Lappa Major, has lost over the centuries the reputation of fighting quartan fever and favouring cicatrization, whereas it maintains that of being a good diaphoretic and blood depurating agent, useful against various dermatitises and metabolic disorders.
* Calendula (Calendula officinalis L.), also known as women’s herb, causes menstruation, whereas in pregnant women it favours abortion. Its anti-inflammatory, lenitive and analgesic properties are already known. The Code reads item succus Ö dolorem dentium tollit.
* Camomile (Matricaria chamomilla L.) decoction, oil and fomentations, but also its macerations in wine and in vinegar, resolve problems affecting the intestine, the liver and the female genitalia, with or without fever. Today this plant is still appreciated for its spasmolytic, diaphoretic, digestive, carminative and febrifuge properties, as well as that of regulating the menstrual cycle in amenorrhoea, dysmenorrhoea and menopausal disorders.
* The root of Comfrey (Symphytum officinale L.), which is externally dark and internally whitish and mucilaginous, reduced into powder and drunk, is useful against internal haemorrhages, especially those affecting the respiratory system and the digestive tract. In external applications, it favours healing of wounds and sores, it decongests swellings and heals fractures.
* Euphrasy (Euphrasia officinalis L.) cures eye disorders, but also the inflammations of the oropharynx associated with colds.
* Garlic (Allium sativum L.) fight worms and relieves disorders of the airways and of the urinary tract. It removes from the body every kind of poison. Experience recommends its use as a parasiticide, expectorant, fluidifying agent diuretic. Studies conducted overt the last decades have added the antiplatelet, hypotensive and antiatheromatous action.
* The virtues of Gentian (Gentiana lutea L.) are all well known. Its medicinal wine is resorted to by those who need to improve their digestion, those who suffer from constipation, liver disorders and icterus and those suffering from parasitosis.
* Hop (Humulus lupulus L.) drinks cure the liver and the spleen, sore intestine and urinary tract inflammations.
* Hypericum (Hypericum perforatum L.), which fugam demonii vocant, heals wounds and sores, especially in oil, whereas the decoction and the medicinal wine have a beneficial internal action as balsamic and pectoral agents.
* Lungwort (Polmonaria officinalis L.) cures every kind of fever and all pulmonary inflammations. However, over the centuries, it has lost this reputation.
* Mallow (Malva silvestris L.) has a refreshing, soothing and relieving effect, both in internal and external use. It helps the respiratory system affected by bronchial catarrh, constipated intestine, damaged, irritated or chapped skin and sore oral cavity.
* Milfoil (Achillea millefolium L.) heals every kind of wound and, if chewed, even toothache. The juice extracted from its leaves, mixed to warm wine, cures the intestine, whereas, if applied externally together with butter, it is useful against swellings and articular pain.
* Mint (Mentha spp) dissolves and comforts. Mouth-rinsing with its infusion removes bad breath, as does gingival massage with its powder. Internal use fights digestive and hepatic insufficiency, as well as urinary tract inflammations. Its succus datus cum melle lumbricos (intestinal worms) interficit. Externally, its poultice relieves sore breasts associated with lactogenesis congestion.
* Onions (Allium cepa L.), cooked in vinegar, wine or milk, or in their own juice, have a strong depurative action, useful in removing any kind of poison.
* Parsley (Petroselinum hortense Hoffm.) is digestive, diuretic, emmenagogic and carminative. In this regard, the Code reads in cibum posita digestionem provocat et ventositatem excludit.
* Strawberries (Fragaria vesca L.) have a cooling effect and mirabiliter sanant.
* The Willow (Salix alba L.) is employed in various ways: externally, it curat verucas and internally (curat) febricitantem. It was to take a number of centuries before the discovery of the salicylic glycosides existing in its ring, but experience already recommended its use. This is an extensive knowledge; the vegetable species treated are numerous: the plants are divided by primary nourishments, lower value nourishments, widely used vegetables, minor vegetables, fresh and dried fruit, essences, spices and actual drugs.
No sharp distinction is provided between the plants supplying nourishment and those supplying drugs.
Proper nourishment is as beneficial as syrups, juleps, electuaries, masticatories, medicinal wines or macerations in oil and in vinegar. On the other hand, it is important to know a great number of vegetable (as well as animal and mineral) species, to process the pulmenta, the salsamenta, the preparata, the composita, the unguenta and the medicamenta, to ensure that a correct choice allows a synergic action of the elements employed.