Johanna St.John Recipe Book (Images)

Lady Johanna's Recipe Book, preserved in the Wellcome Library, is a fascinating collection of seventeenth-century remedies and curatives. A blend of superstition and science, the remedies are grouped by the condition they are intended to cure - from The King's Evil to the Plague, Canker of the Breast, or the Green Sickness. Many recipes depend on ingredients only available from the London apothecaries (unicorn horn, for one) while others contain herbs that would have been found in any cottage garden. Many recipes were handed down through generations or exchanged between friends, and poignant margin notes validate the efficacy of the remedies, citing both the condition and the person who was cured.