HUNTIA A Journal of Botanical History VOLUME 18 NUMBER 4 2021 Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh The Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, a research division of Carnegie Mellon University, specializes in the history of botany and all aspects of plant science and serves the international scientific community through research and documentation. To this end, the Institute acquires and maintains authoritative collections of books, plant images, manuscripts, portraits and data files, and provides publications and other modes of information service. The Institute meets the reference needs of botanists, biologists, historians, conservationists, librarians, bibliographers and the public at large, especially those concerned with any aspect of the North American flora. Huntia publishes articles on all aspects of the history of botany, including exploration, art, literature, biography, iconography and bibliography. 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Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation Carnegie Mellon University 5th Floor, Hunt Library 4909 Frew Street Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 Telephone: 412-268-2434 Email: [email protected] Web site: https://www.huntbotanical.org Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HuntBotanical/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/HuntBotanical Online gift shop: https://www.cafepress.com/huntbotanical Editor and layout Scarlett T. Townsend Editor, Emeritus Robert W. Kiger Associate Editors Donald W. Brown T. D. Jacobsen Charlotte A. Tancin J. Dustin Williams © 2021 Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation All Rights Reserved ISSN 0073-4071 Contents How poisonous plants link materia medica, botanical artists, publishers, education, legislation and pharmacy in Victorian Britain R. B. Williams 123–156 Known and unknown creators of the illustrations for the Prague editions of Mattioli’s herbal (1562, 1563) Jana Vlachová (Tvrzníková) 157–170 HUNTIA 18(4) 2021 How poisonous plants link materia medica, botanical artists, publishers, education, legislation and pharmacy in Victorian Britain R. B. Williams Abstract The discovery of an extremely rare, possibly unique introduced to regulate the British pharmaceutical set of 14 hand-coloured lithographic plates of British profession. Searches of printed and digital catalogues of poisonous plants prompted efforts to trace its origin, specialist museums, archives, libraries and the antiques publishing history and purpose. Such sets, enclosed in trade worldwide failed to detect any other example of the a printed, scrim-lined paper envelope, were presented presently described assemblage of plates, now attributed to purchasers of materia medica cabinets assembled to James Sowerby, John Edward Sowerby and James by Evans, Lescher, and Evans, drug wholesalers of de Carle Sowerby (1869), which supplements Ronald Liverpool, England. A fascinating Victorian social Cleeveley’s 1974 bibliographies of the Sowerby family. network, linking artistically talented naturalists, authors and publishers with the legislative regulation of the British pharmaceutical industry has been revealed. The Introduction plates originated from the work of James Sowerby (1757– 1822), the illustrator of James E. Smith’s English Botany; The discovery of an extremely rare, perhaps James de Carle Sowerby (1787–1871); and John Edward unique, set of Victorian hand-coloured Sowerby (1825–1870), the illustrator of Charles Johnson’s lithographic plates of British poisonous plants British Poisonous Plants. Copper engravings, up to 76 years old, were transferred to stones for the materia medica prompted investigations into its origin, plates and printed by the lithographer William West publishing history and purpose. It has thus (1828–1870). Copyright holders and publishers of interim been established that such sets of plates had editions included the Sowerby family, the London been presented to purchasers, from 1869 publisher John Van Voorst (1804–1898) and the firm of Evans, Lescher, and Evans. Published shortly before May onwards, of certain materia medica cabinets 1869, the plates were intended to enhance the usefulness assembled by the firm of Evans, Lescher, of materia medica cabinets manufactured in response to and Evans, wholesale druggists of Liverpool, the Pharmacy Act, 1868 to assist British pharmaceutical England. This paper explores the artistic students in preparing for legally required professional examinations. The plates, to facilitate comparison of origins and attributions of the plates and images of living plants with the dried specimens, and how they enhanced the usefulness of materia the cabinets together served as practical teaching aids to medica cabinets designed for educating British supplement the instructional textbooks written by Frank pharmaceutical apprentices. Other interrelated Harwood Lescher (1842–1918). A further directive of the Pharmacy Act, 1868 was the mandatory recording of all aspects that emerged include the production of retail sales of poisons by pharmacists and druggists; this botanical illustrations by three generations of was facilitated by the production of pre-printed forms in the Sowerby family of natural-history artists so-called “poison books” by Evans, Lescher, and Evans, and their working relationships with authors, among other firms. The contributions of Evans, Lescher, and Evans to the British pharmaceutical industry are copyright holders and printers; the business described in the context of Victorian teaching of botany connection and shared interests in scientific and pharmacy and of the contemporary legislation education between the publisher John Van Voorst and the firm of Evans, Lescher, and Norfolk House, Western Road, Tring, Evans; and the legislative regulation in Great Hertfordshire, HP23 4BN, United Kingdom. Britain of professional chemists, druggists and Email: [email protected] pharmacists during the late Victorian period. 123 124 HUNTIA 18(4) 2021 A presentation set of materia medica archives or antique dealers worldwide that I have plates been able to consult; this published assemblage of plates is thus an extremely rare, perhaps During 45 years of bibliographical research, unique, survival. The 14 lithographs, loosely I have encountered only this single example, held within a single fold of plain paper, are in described herein, of a presentation set of hand- a white (now very dirty), scrim-lined paper coloured lithographs of British poisonous plants. envelope (205 × 142 mm), with black printing on No other sets are recorded in printed or digital the recto (Fig. 1). For clarity the most significant catalogues of any specialist museums, libraries, wording is reproduced here in quasi-facsimile: Fourteen Illustrations of Medicinal Poisonous Plants, FROM THE “BRITISH POISONOUS PLANTS,” * BY PERMISSION OF MR. VAN VOORST, PRESENTED TO...................................................... WITH EVANS, LESCHER, & EVANS’ MATERIA MEDICA CABINETS. LIVERPOOL AND LONDON. Figure 1. Protective envelope of Fourteen Illustrations of Medicinal Poisonous Plants, published by Evans, Lescher, & Evans (photo by R. B. Williams, personal collection). Williams: How poisonous plants link materia medica and pharmacy in Victorian Britain 125 Disappointingly, neither name nor address in Victorian Britain? Each link in the complex of the recipient is inserted. The asterisk after network of actors will be addressed herein. “BRITISH POISONOUS PLANTS” directs one to an advertisement placed below it for Origins of the materia medica plates the second edition of the book of that title (Fig. 2), published by John Van Voorst of The 14 unnumbered plates have far more 1, Paternoster Row, London. That edition complex origins than is apparent from the (Johnson and Johnson 1861) includes a total of deceptively simple statement on their envelope, 32 plates. The presentation set of 14 lithographs that they were directly derived from the second in their envelope, constituting a later, discrete edition of British Poisonous Plants. In fact all publication, will hereinafter be referred to as the lithographs of both the first and second the “materia medica plates”. editions (Johnson 1856; Johnson and Johnson 1861) are stated on the title-pages to have been transferred from English Botany (Smith The dramatis personae and Sowerby 1790–1814);4 the plates of that The history of the materia medica plates monumental work are actually copperplate involves a complex social network of people engravings. More explicitly, however, the who played important parts. For convenience preface of British Poisonous Plants (identical in the chief protagonists are introduced here: both editions) reveals that “The illustrations 1. The original authors of the editions of consist of twenty-eight figures of the principal British Poisonous Plants, Charles Johnson species described, which have been transferred (1791–1880) and Charles Pierpoint Johnson