Medicinal Plants Educational Posters, Art Prints & Charts
for classrooms, home schoolers, offices.

• botany posters
• herbs posters

Mandrake, the common name of the plant that has parsley shaped roots that often branch into the shape of a human figure (male and female), has long been attributed with magical powers.

The Mandrake grows natively in southern and central Europe, in lands around the Mediterranean Sea, and on Corsica. This illustration is from the Treatise by Dioscorides.

• Making Medicines: A Brief History of Pharmacy and Pharmaceuticals

A theriac was a medicinal of opium, viper and a number of other ingredients originally concocted as an antidote against snake venom. Later it became a panacea for all aliments and probably had a sediative effect.

FYI - Theriac and the English word treacle (any syrup resulting from refining sugar and usually used as a sweetener or condiment in cooking) are derived from the same Greek root word theriaka. Careful readers (and trivia aficionados) will recognize a “treacle well” from Alice in Wonderland, and treacle tarts from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Harry Potter.

Cinchona from 'Phytographie Medicale' by Joseph Roques, Published in 1821, Giclee Print

Cinchona, the source of quinine used to treat malaria, grows in the Andes Mountains of South America.

Malaria, for which there is evidence that it has been with humanity for 50,000 years, is a common, widespread vector-borne infectious disease is transmitted by female Anopheles mosquitos. The symptons, anemia, fever, and chills, are experienced by 515 million people annually, and responsible for killing between 1 and 3 million people a year.

The word malaria is from the Italian - “mal” (bad) + “aria” (air), it is also known as ague and marsh fever, as it was associated with swampy areas that were prime breeding grounds for mosquitos.

Dr. John Sappington of Arrow Rock, Missouri is regarded as the first doctor (1823) to “effectively use quinine for the treatment of malaria and fevers.”

Lemongrass is a tall perennial grass native to warm temperate and the tropical regions of the Old World and Oceania.

Lemongrass is commonly used in teas, soups, and curries; lemongrass oil is a pesticide, and preservative with anti-fungal properties.

• Lemongrass Products

Yarrow, Achillea millefolium, has numerous qualities beneficial to humans despite being associated with war in flower lore.

Yarrow's reputation as a healing plant was recorded by Homer in The Iliad: Achilles gave yarrow salve to his soldiers to help stop the bleeding, and in the Middle Ages a carpenter could staunch blood flow with the plant grown just outside the door.

The Yarrow also combats erosion as it prefers poorly developed soils and tolerates drought, as well as attracting beneficial insects and repelling mosquitos.

In Chinese culture the yarrow stalks were used to throw the I Ching.

• The Herbalist of Yarrow: A Fairy Tale of Plant Wisdom

Elizabeth Blackwell, née Blachrie
b. 1700; Scotland
d. 1758

This is not the Elizabeth Blackwell who earned the first medical degree in the US. This Elizabeth Blackwell was among the first women to achieve fame as a botanical illustrator. As artist and engraver for the plates of A Curious Herbal, designed for physicians as a reference to medicinal plants, she bought her husband's release from debtors prison. (He was there because he squandered her dowry.)

• women artists poster gallery

Nicholas Culpeper
b. 10-18-1616; England
d. 1-10-1654; London - tuberculosis

Nicholas Culpeper, a physician and botanist whose systematic use of herbals was a key development in the evolution of modern pharmaceuticals, also translated Latin medical and herbal texts into vernacular English.

• Culpeper's Complete Herbal
• Heal Thyself: Nicholas Culpeper and the Seventeenth-Century Struggle to Bring Medicine to the People
• Nicholas Culpeper, Herbalist of the People (online bio)

Percy Lavon Julian
b. 4-11-1899; Montgomery, AL
d. 4-19-1975; Illinois

Research chemist Percy Lavon Julian was a pioneer in the chemical synthesis of medicinal drugs from plants and during his lifetime he received more than 130 chemical patents.

He was one of the first African-Americans to earn a doctorate in chemistry (after St. Elmo Brady and Edward M. A. Chandler) and he also taught chemistry at the university level.