October 18th
Born 18 Oct 1616; died 1654.
English pharmacist, botanist and physician who published the Complete Herbal (1653), a comprehensive listing of English medicinal herbs and their uses. It is still in print. While upper-class physicians withheld medical knowledge from the common people, Culpeper, of lower-class roots, did the opposite by spreading medical knowledge among the people and giving his time generously to charity patients. He wrote or translated a large number of medical works to give people access to a vast amount of health information. He wished that any man using his Herbal could “preserve his Body in Health, or cure himself, being sick, for three pence charge, with such things only as grow in England.” Culpeper died of tuberculosis at age 38.
