Edwarde Potter’s Booke of Phisicke and Chyrurgery is a manuscript dating back to the early seventeenth century. We do not know why it was compiled, but we have tracked down Edwarde Potter. He was a vicar, who held the living at Tatsfield, on the Kent-Surrey border, dying in 1612.
In the nineteenth century it came into the possession first of antiquarian Rev. John Hodgson, and then another antiquarian, James Raine of Durham. One or other of these owners bound it together with another manuscript (mainly of cookery recipes) from the eighteenth century. From the references in it, we know that these later pages must have been written in Newcastle or nearby.
The book offers remedies for all sorts of diseases and injuries, along with a number of recipes for sweetmeats and cakes. Many are very gruesome, and most are in the ‘don’t try this at home’ category. Some use the blood and even the skin of animals, while others include minerals such as red lead and mercury, and large numbers of different herbs and spices.
The volume now belongs to the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne, and is kept at Northumberland Archives at Woodhorn, and all 387 pages have been digitised and are available on this website, along with the transcriptions.
An article in volume 50 of the Society’s journal, Archaeologia Aeliana, ‘Edwarde Potter and his book’, by Sue Ward and Kath Smith, gave more details of both the compiler and the contents. It was also studied just over a hundred years ago, in 1917; follow this link for the article in our Proceedings which describes it. The antiquary Rev John Hodgson, who owned it in the early 19th century, also wrote about it in a piece in the Gentlemen’s Magazine in 1835, giving more details; follow this link to see that.
The first part of the volume is divided into seven ‘bookes’, or sections, with some preliminary matter at the beginning not included in any of them. The last, eighteenth-century, section does not have numbered pages or any subdivisions. Follow the links to see the contents of each section.
(Note, the spelling of ‘book’ varies within the volume; we have kept it in the original here). To see the 387 images, follow this link
Many of the natural ingredients mentioned in these pages can be positively harmful – not only the minerals, but also the plants. While some may still be used in herbal medicines, pollution and pesticides mean that gathering them in the wild comes with considerable risk. Even if herbs or spices come from a reputable source, individuals can react differently to herbal remedies. It would be deeply unwise for anyone to attempt to self-medicate with a remedy Potter describes. No liability can be accepted for any adverse effects caused by self-treatment with the natural ingredients referred to in the transcription.
