medicine
Old wives tales?
Some of the Materia Medica jars have been dusted off and used for a creative writing session as part of the Manchester Science Festival 2014. Many lovely people turned up for the event and used the jars as inspiration to write some poetry. Here are some of the poems that were produced:
Cancer Defeated by Nick Duffy
Radioactive
Energy
Medical
Experiment
Defeated
You
The Old Ways: Alternatives by Diane Duffy
What is left of the old ways?
Old wives’ tales,
Old wives.
Shrivelled nature dried under glass,
Decayed matter on a shelf.
On the shelf
The woman and her cures become one
A metaphor for the past.
Alternatives?
Alternative – no alternative.
Wise woman translated into WITCH.
Which to choose?
Now we have a choice!
The Materia Medica by Jemma Houghton
Down the spiral staircase
Through that old wooden door
Find yourself in a magical place
Strange looking jars from ceiling to floor
Through that old wooden door
Big jars, little jars, flat and tall too
Strange looking jars from ceiling to floor
Look them up and see what they do
Big jars, little jars, flat and tall too
Find yourself in a magical place
Look them up and see what they do
Down the spiral staircase
Thank you to poet Tony Sheppard, for running an interesting session, and to all who turned up to the event.
Old wives tales?
Old Wives Tales?
Thurs 23 Oct, 2-4pm. Taking inspiration from the Museum’s fascinating material medical collection, explore our relationship to medicine through conversation and creative writing. Chat about family remedies and whether there’s any truth behind natural cures. Take part in simple poetry exercises to compose your own piece about your experiences and memories. With poet Tony Sheppard and Curator of Botany, Rachel Webster. Part of Manchester Science Festival, supported by Siemens.
Price: Book on 0161 275 2648 or museum@manchester.ac.uk, free, adults
Re-arranging the medicine cabinet….
The herbarium possesses a wealth of botanical specimens in a special collection called the Materia Medica. The Materia Medica collection houses a huge variety of plant derivatives that were used in Victorian times for their therapeutic benefits. Stored in a confusing order in awkward cupboards in a room seldom visited, the collection was in need of a re-organisation. Each sample is stored in a glass jar. On each glass jar is a number in sharpie pen, this number represents the family the plant is a member of, using the Bentham & Hooker system of ordering. Previously the collection was ordered by what the sample was. For example there would be a shelf for seed samples, rhizomes, cortex samples, leaves etc. This system didn’t make much sense for a person who wanted to view all of the parts of one plant, or one genus of plant. This led to us deciding it would be best to do a complete overhaul of the system of ordering and start anew.
The first task in the project was to clear the cupboards of all of the samples. One morning Jamie the apprentice, Bernard the volunteer and I emptied the cupboards. Using the numbers written on the jars, we placed samples from the same family together on some temporary shelving. 578 jars of samples later and we had finally cleared the cupboards.
The next task was to write down what exactly was in each jar. What the sample was, the common name of the plant, the plant’s Latin name etc. This data is to be entered into a spreadsheet so that when people want to look specific items in the collection they will know where it is located or if there are any other parts of the plant in the collection. We will the re-house the collection back into the cupboards in the new order.
Whilst the advent of modern medicine means the samples in the Materia Medica are no longer widely used, the samples are fascinating. The collection includes items such as: Poppy seeds (Papaver somniferum), Acacia Gum (Acacia sp.), Red Sandal Wood (Pterocarpus santalinus) , Grains of Paradise (Amomum melegueta) & Dragon’s Blood (Calamus draco).
Blog post by Josh, FLS placement student
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