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Colonial Cultivation And Concoctions, Sara Jones Gomberg

MCV/Q, Medical College of Virginia Quarterly

Have you ever wondered how to increase the value of your property? One way would be to include a well-cultivated herb garden, that is if you were a seventeenth-century colonist. Not only were the herbs much sought after for their culinary uses but also for their medicinal properties. Today’s medical library may not include a collection of botany books, yet botanical knowledge was a large part of early medical training and the mainstay of the “cavalier concoctions” used by colonists for medical treatment.