Traditional Herbal Remedies of (THERWAL)

Geneviève Xhayet

Université de Liège,

Centre d’histoire des sciences et des techniques

1. Definition of the Project

In the past, various studies about herbs based on ancient sets of plant illustrations, sometimes lead to the development of gardens, but the study of the use of these plants through recipe books ‐ more complex ‐ has been less undertaken.

This project is about the creation of a database of popular folk medicinal recipes using plants of Wallonia from the Late Middle Ages to the nineteenth century, with a view to an improvement of the knowledge of ancient pharmacopoeia of vegetable origin of our regions, its popularization and the possible re‐cultivation of some of these herbs.

2. State of the Art

This study is based on a double expertise i.e. industrial and scholarly.

1. For a long time, a medicinal plant industry had existed in Wallonia. It concentrated, amongst others, in Western Hainaut (Hainaut occidental) in the ‘Land of the Hills’ (Pays des Collines), around Flobecqas well as in the region of . It developed mostly from the middle of the nineteenth century.In most cases, the plants cultivated were angelica, camomile, melissa, burdock, henbane, mallow, mint, valeriana, or inula. This activity extended to the picking of wild medicinal plants.

This industry fell into disuse from 1950. Various reasons explain this decline: the rise of labour costs, the competition of other crops, the development of chemical and pharmaceutical industries. In 1954, only about ten hectares are still farmed. Around 1990, these medicinal herbs are only to be found in a few gardens. One must wait until the beginning of 2000 and initiatives like the creation of the‘House of Medicinal Plants’ (Maison des Plantes médicinales) in in 2006 to give it a new boost. In 2005, the production rose to 30 hectares and about ten producers (in the area of Deux‐Acren and Flobecq).

2. From a scholarly point of view, since the eighties, the Centre of History of Science and Technology (CHST) of the University of Liège is conducting historical studies on ancient medicinal recipes. They first materialized into the THEOREMA project

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(Thesaurus by Computer of Ancient medical Recipes ‐Thésaurus par ordinateur des recettes médicinales anciennes), a database limited to the period from first to tenth centuries AD, which gave rise to the publication of Carmélia Opsomer’s book ‘Index of the Pharmacopoeia from the First to the Tenth Century’ (Index de la pharmacopée du premier au dixième siècle) in 1989 (two volumes published by OlmsWeidmann, Hildesheim, Zurich, New York).

3. On the basis of about 28000 herbal recipes, collected from various books published (ex. fig .2) from the late Antiquity and the high Middle Ages, this database takes an inventory of the plants mentioned in recipes and their names recipe by recipe. A numbering system individualizes the recipes and the books, and makes possible to refer the different mentions of plants from one to another (fig.3).

More recently, these studies went on with Geneviève Xhayet’s work about Late Middle Ages recipes and the publication of ‘Medicine and Divinatory Arts in the Medieval Benedictine World from the recipe books of saint James in Liège’ (‘Médecine et arts divinatoiresdans le monde bénédictin medieval à travers les réceptaires de Saint‐Jacques de Liège’,in Paris in 2010). The aim of this research was a bit different, as it mainly consisted in the study on the knowledge (and the medical practices) in a Late Middle Ages monastery, in comparison with the erudite knowledge taught in universities. The recipes were studied under two angles:

‐ the first one, looking for parallels trough the comparison with other recipe books of the same period what made possible the highlight of the diffusion areas of knowledge (and the use of particular plants).

‐ the second one, researching the potential sources of the proposed recipes in comparison with more ancient books, sometimes dating back from Antiquity.

Finally, the pharmacological laboratories of the Universities of Liège and are working on exotic plants and their use in the traditional remedies. The VERDIR project, conducted by the University of Liège, plans to grow out soil on industrial wasteland, plants containing high value‐added molecules which can be used in pharmaceutics.

3. Research Programme

3.1. Programme Sequences The project will consist of two phases:

3.1.1. First Phase Preparation of a Collection of Recipes andCreation of a Database The preparation of a collection of recipes aims to go through the gathering of recipe books that appeared in local journals or ancient editions, and unpublished ones will also be taken into account. They are to be found among public and private archive collections, and precious libraries holdings. Many of them exist as manuscripts preserved in families for generations. Many of them were digitized by the CHST, but a public call will be issued to increase the corpus.

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Collected recipes will enable us to create a simple herbal drugs database including, for a given plant, the following information: ‐ its habitat under its different names, ‐ the place and time of its use, ‐ the treated illnesses, ‐ its directions for use , ‐ its possible associations with other simple herbal drugs, ‐ the method of application of the remedy.

Here is an example of recipe and its processing in the data base (fig.).

Exemple 1 :

Plante : absinthe armoise (Wormwood)

Nom de la plante dans la recette : fwart (wallon)

Lieu d’origine de la recette : Malmedy

Époque : 1re moitié 20e siècle

Usage curatif : rendre des forces, état grippal

Mode de préparation : faire macérer les fleurs ou les graines dans du genièvre (alcool de grain) ou du vin

Mode d’administration : donner à boire

Divers: /

Source : Abbé Joseph Bastin, Les plantes dans le parler, l’histoire et les usages de la wallonie malmédienne, Liège, 1933, p. 153‐154.

Exemple 2 :

Plante : pimprenelle (Burnet)

Nom de la plante dans la recette : pimpurnelle (wallon)

Lieu d’origine de la recette : Malmedy

Époque : 1re moitié 20e siècle

Usage curatif : affections d’estomac

Mode préparation : infusion (accompagnant non précisé)

Mode d’administration : donner à boire.

Divers (remarque complémentaire) Si l’infusion est prise durant plusieurs jours, « fera expectorer jusqu’au sang »

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Source : Abbé Joseph Bastin (1933), les plantes…, p. 171

Interpretation of the Database

The research will have two ends. First, to determine, for a particular plant or combination of plants, the region of its use and the illnesses it was supposed to treat. Second, for a given group of ailments, on the basis oftheir descriptions (illnesses being insufficiently defined until the nineteenth century), to make it possible to have access to the list of the plants used by our ancestors. By means of this tool, the spectrum of application of these various medicinal herbs will be defined. Eventually, this research will end on a study of structural anthropology of the art of healing.

Popularization Being an institution of research and documentation, the Center of History of Sciences and Technologies also devotes itself to the popularization of knowledge in history of Sciences by actions intended for a wide audience.

This research will lead on to exhibitions at the‘House of Medicinal Plants’ (Maison des Plantes médicinales) in Flobecq, at ‘Notre Dame à la Rose Hospital’ in Lessines, and at Villers la Ville and Orval Abbeys, aiming at making our contemporaries more aware ofthe potential of herbal remedies.

Second Phase

This phase will consist in two stages.

3.1.2. Laboratory Tests On the basis of the results inferred from the database, an analytic investigation of the active ingredients of these plants will be conducted in laboratory.

Replanting Attempts Replanting attempts of some medicinal plants will be carried out according to the prescriptions of ancient agronomists like Pietro de Crescenzi and Olivier de Serres: description of ancient gathering, cultivation and preservation processes, etc. These tests will be the subject of a future financing request.

3.2. Expected Final Results In the field of fundamental research, a study on the structural anthropology of the traditional art of healing will be conducted. Through the recipes and their therapeutic proposals, we will intend to highlight the thinking patterns that mapped out the traditional art of healing in our regions.

Concerning applied research, this work will open new fields to pharmacological research by focusing on forgotten medicinal plants which would deserve to be put back into cultivation and be re‐exploited. It will also provide agronomy with forgotten processes for the

4 replantation of medicinal vegetables and contribute to the revival of a formerly flourishing but now obsolete agro‐industrial sector. Eventually, it will provide leads for research aiming at the highlight of a medicine more simple and adaptable to shortage conditions, for example in developing countries.

4. Partnership

Project leader CHST will achieve this programme in partnership with several research laboratories and science popularization centres of Wallonia. The tradition of medicinal plants cultivation characteristic of Western Hainaut led the CHST to look for collaboration. The already mentioned “House of Medicinal Plants’ in Flobecq imposed itself as a partner. From its creation, it forged close bonds with the CHST, not only on a scientific level, but items preserved by the CHST were also lent for its permanent exhibition.

The work of analysis of the data consists of two phases. The first one deals with knowledge history. The second one has to do with the relevance of the plants selection is in connection with pharmacognosia and requires to appeal to laboratories. Pharmacognosia laboratories of the Universities of Liège (Professor Michel Frederich) and Mons (Professor Pierre Duez) have already shown their interest in the project.

5. International Connections In its entirety, the project will fall within an international perspective, in parallel to DACALBO (Digital Archive Concerning Alchemy in Byzantium and in Greek‐Speaking Communities of the Ottoman Empire), project conducted by the ‘National Hellenic Research Foundation’ (Fondation nationale hellénique de la Recherche) and that is about traditional pharmacopoeia from Eastern Mediterranean.

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