A Pompeian Herbal: Ancient and Modern Medicinal Plants

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 plants contemporary medicinal uses and compares them to ancient practices as recorded in literary sources. Scientific English and Italian names and the plants mythological associations complete the entries while elegant full-page portraits depict each plant visually.