Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 1253.5

WILLIAM MEYRICK (b. ca. 1770) The new family herbal; or, Domestic physician: enumerating, with accurate descriptions, all the known vegetables which are any way remarkable for medical efficacy; with an account of their virtues in the several diseases incident to the human frame. Printed by T. Pearson 1790 1 p. I., xxiv, 498 p., 14 p. I. front., plates. 22 cm.

William Meyrick was an English surgeon and botanist. He felt that other herbals of his day were “too expensive to be commonly read, and too scientific to be universally understood”, and filled with materials that were “injudiciously selected, the descriptions of them so defective and inaccurate, and the virtues ascribed to them so numerous and incredible.” As a result, he wrote this, a concise layman’s herbal.

Cited references: Wellcome IV p.128

John Martin M.D. Endowment