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JOHN'S unhappy domestic life
during the eight years of his residence in Aberdeen had greatly interfered
with the progress of the studies he had begun at Drumlithie, except
politics, which, amongst the keen polemical websters of the city, had roused
this increasing interest. But, with the greater leisure of his enforced
solitariness, and amidst the sanative influences of the country life he now
led, his intellectual appetite revived, and he devoted himself with
redoubled earnestness and characteristic energy to certain subjects which
will now reward our attention.
He set himself first to make
up, as fully and as speedily as possible, the defects of his early want of
education.
We have seen how he learnt to
read, and, the eagerness with which he began to use this golden art. When he
learnt to write, it is now impossible to state. We have found him working
hard at it when living near Monymusk, in 1828, that is in his thirty-fourth
year, and making creditable progress; so that he was soon able to write and
receive letters. He carried on the careful practice of it in set copies,
moreover, for several years after that.
The meaning and etymology of
words claimed his early attention, and, to assist him in this desirable
work, he soon procured that capital old book, unique in its time, and still
worth having, the "Universal Etymological English Dictionary of N. Bailey,
 ," with the
derivation and explanation of words in common use, in the sciences and arts,
in law, in place and proper names, etc., and "a collection, explication, and
illustration of our most common proverbs," which are really well done;" the
whole compiled and methodically digested, as well for the entertainment of
the curious as the information of the ignorant; and for the benefit of young
students, artificers, tradesmen, and foreigners, who are desirous thoroughly
to understand what they speak, read, or write"—a far better book than its
magniloquent title-page would indicate. In 1757, it had passed through
seventeen editions, and was the very help a solitary student like our good
weaver required. In 1830, he also bought a "Dictionary of the Scottish
Language," published three years before, to extend his knowledge of the
vernacular he used so well. The etymology of the names of the places round
about him he also wished to know, and he has preserved a list of names
derived from the Gaelic, with their meanings, written by him at an early
date.
He worked also at grammar,
with the help of a "Grammar Made Easy," published in 1805; and at
arithmetic, guided by the immortal Cocker, of which he used the edition of
1787, afterwards getting, in 1839, the "Introduction" of Gray, a name as
synonymous with arithmetic in Scotland as Cocker's in England.
So determined was John to get
at the roots of things in regard to his studies, that he essayed Latin, and
his exercise-book still exists, evidently led to the subject by the
technical names of the plants with which his medico-botanical studies made
him familiar. He used the grammar of the great Ruddirnan, the small edition
of 1803, issued from the Edinburgh University Press. He purchased a copy of
"Ainsworth's Latin Dictionary," edited in 1825 by a Dr. Ross; and a
"Catechism of Classical Biography," of 1824. His Latin was of real practical
utility to him in his after botanical researches. He began also the Greek
rudiments, in spite of its peculiar alphabet to bar the way of a home
student. This great language he continued to study, chiefly in order to get
at the original tongue of the New Testament, as we shall afterwards see. He
was not the man to rest contented with using big technical terms, however
fluently, without knowing what they meant. He knew their meaning and
etymology to an uncommon extent. John's motto throughout life in all he did,
from weaving to Biblical criticism and higher Botany, was, like that of all
strong men, "Thorough." His Latin and Greek he took some pleasure and pride
in using in various ways, like all private students of a foreign tongue, as
poet Burns did his French.
A knowledge of the world in
which he dwelt was necessary to his happiness, and he studied geography. He
must become acquainted also with the strange and fascinating story of the
doings of the human beings that have lived and died on its surface. He
therefore devoured history and biography, both British and general, ancient
and modern, and on both subjects he gradually gathered a large number of
books and much varied information.
In a scientific direction,
John had two chief studies at this period—those of plants, as far as they
were medicinal herbs in medical botany; and of the stars in astronomy.
It was not till he was forty
years old that he was introduced to scientific Botany proper, which became
the enthusiasm of the next forty years, after his fortunate meeting with the
friend of his life, Charles Black.
Before this meeting, however,
John's knowledge of plants was neither small nor uninteresting, as it could
scarcely be with so humorous and practical a master as Culpepper. We have
seen how he began the study while yet in his teens, during his
apprenticeship at Drumlithie, and how he early purchased a copy of
Culpepper. Notwithstanding his strange-looking name, Culpepper was an
Englishman, born in London in 1616, and dying in 1654. His book is curious
and interesting, bearing on its front that it contains "nearly four hundred
medicines made from English herbs, physically applied to the cure of all
disorders incident to man, with rules for compounding them," by "Nicholas
Culpepper, Student in Physic and Astrology."
Of each plant, it gives a
description, sometimes pretty minute, though popular and unscientific; the
places where it was to be found; its flowering time; its "government,"
according to the astrological influences under which it should be gathered,
to possess potency; and its "virtues" or the diseases it was held to cure,
with directions for preparation and use. It contains a deal of queer,
old-world learning.
Nicholas Culpepper's style is
quaint, with a touch of biblical antiqueness, often dryly humorous, and not
seldom rudely outspoken. He does not describe the elder tree, for instance,
"since every boy that plays with a popgun will not mistake another tree
instead of it;" he says that if eyebright "was but as much used as it is
neglected, it would half spoil the spectacle-maker's trade;" and that the
common practice of applying a medicine in one part of the body to affect
another, is "as proper as for me when my toe is sore to lay a plaister on my
nose." He gives curious personal details, as his curing his own daughter of
the king's evil with pilewort. He tells us, "Mars loves no cowards, nor
Saturn fools, nor I neither." He essays practical philosophy and kindly
moralizing. For example, he wishes "gentlewomen would keep butter-burr
preserved, to help their poor neighbours, as it is fit the rich should help
the poor, for the poor cannot help themselves;" "let no man," says he,
"despise cinquefoil, because it is plain and easy—the ways of God are all
such;" "seven years' care and fear makes a man never the wiser nor a
farthing richer;" "he that reads this, and understands what he reads, hath a
jewel of more worth than a diamond."
He leaves a remedy to the
world, "not caring a farthing whether they like or dislike it; the grave
equals all men, and therefore will equal me with all princes, until which
time the Eternal Providence is over me; then the ill tongue of a prating
fellow, or one that hath more tongue than wit or more proud than honest,
shall never trouble me: wisdom is justified by her children: and so much for
wormwood." He talks facetiously of Dr. Tradition, Dr. Reason, Dr.
Experience, Dr. Ignorance, Dr. Folly, and Dr. Sickness. Altogether, the good
Culpepper aims at being at once the "guide, philosopher, and friend" of his
disciples. Certainly he cannot be accused of ever being wearisome, obscure,
or dull.
John Duncan possessed at a
later time a very fine octavo copy of the "Herbal," edited in 1835 by Sir
John Hill, M.D. He also took out, in sixpenny parts, a large work by this
same Sir John, "The Family Herbal," with an account of all plants, English
and foreign, "remarkable for their virtues," with recipes for "distilled
water, conserves, syrups, electuaries, juleps, draughts," etc., and "elegant
plates of one hundred and sixty English plants, accurately drawn and
coloured from nature."
At an early date, he bought
another smaller but more scientific work of a similar kind, "Tournefort's
Compleat Herbal" (1719), "translated from the Latin," two volumes in one,
also with very good plates. The author, who is described on the title as
"Chief Botanist to the late French King," was a Frenchman, one of the
greatest botanists of the seventeenth century, who was born in 1656, and
died in 1708. He travelled widely, and wrote several works on botany, which
did great service to the growing science. He was the first to classify
plants in genera, and formed a system which maintained its sway till it was
superseded by that of Linnwus. Duncan purchased, in 1842, an "Alphabet of
Medical Botany," by James Rennie, M.D. He extended his medical knowledge in
after years, and possessed books on some of its more difficult parts, such
as "Walsh on Cancer."
Even after being introduced
to scientific botany, Duncan retained to the last a thorough faith in their
medicinal virtues, and pursued his quasi-medical studies alongside of his
scientific. His knowledge of plants was at no time a barren, dry, technical
accumulation of characteristics and words, in both of which botany is richer
than most other sciences, and which form a strong temptation to its ardent
students to know these and nothing more. He gradually amassed a varied lore
of interesting, practical, picturesque facts regarding plants, which he used
to draw from when conversing with his more intimate friends and disciples ;
and he continued throughout life to treat himself and them with the
decoctions and ointments he made. In the flower garden he formed afterwards
at Droughsburn, he cultivated such of them as did not grow wild, but were
required for his medicines.
A few glimpses of John's
utilization of plants in this way may be both interesting and instructive.
When I first made his acquaintance in his eighty-third year, in taking a
walk with the bent, eager old medico-botanist, as we passed the fig-wort (Scrophularia
nodosa), he told me how he had cured himself of a very painful affection by
means of a decoction of this plant and the common dock, adding, with
grateful energy, "Man, it wrocht like a chairm! Widna the doctors hae made a
fine job o' me?" Throughout life, until his last illness, he would never
submit himself to a medical man's hands, believing rather in his old
friends, Culpepper, Tournefort, and Hill, than in all the wisdom of the
schools—like all genuine herbalists, whose condemnation of common practice
is always uncompromising; and like the valiant Culpepper, who declares "the
College of Physicians too stately to learn and too proud to continue." When
Dr. Morrison of the Guise, in the Vale of Alford, on one occasion urged him
to take salts and senna, then a universal cure, for some illness he had, he
replied, "Ay, that's the way ye do—ye hunt it oot and ye hunt it in. I'll
gae to the chield at the gairden" (Charles Black) "and get some rhubarb
roots, which will do my job. I'll hae vane o' yer dirt!"
He used to give proofs of his
own successful practice with herbs, in his own experience and in that of his
friends, many of whom have spoken gratefully of the good his drugs did them.
He spoke of curing several more serious diseases with them, "nae an easy
dune thing;" of healing, amongst others, a woman who had been a cripple for
years with a painful affection; and of like successes, which increased his
faith in his works. But he had too much sense to place unlimited reliance on
all he read and heard on this subject, for John had always in him a good
spice of philosophical scepticism. Of many of their decoctions, he used to
say that they were "gweedless, ill-less stuffie," that is, they did neither
good nor ill. But in a discriminating study of the medical virtues of
plants, he made rapid progress ; as he said, "I cam' great speed." With
successful applications, he began to be "thocht siccar," that is, a secure,
safe guide. Letters still exist addressed to him, acknowledging cures,
asking advice, and, on occasions, telling him not to trouble himself to
revisit the patient, on account of the improvement already effected.
As examples of the curative
plants he employed:—He used sneeze-wort (Ac/ii/lea ptarmica) as a cure for
toothache; and a little of the root placed between the teeth causes
salivation and a slight elevation of the teeth like incipient toothache, so
that it may cure by the homoeopathic law of similia similibus; being named
sneezewort, he said, from its leaves having once been ground into a kind of
snuff. When he showed this plant to a young friend, he said, "This is a cure
for toothache; yet fowk'll be real ill wi' their teeth, afore they'll
believe you or me, and they'll gang awa doon to Mr. Hay's " (the druggist's
in Alford) "and pay threepence or fourpence for fat they micht get for
naething but foul fingers! "—that is, for the trouble of digging for the
roots. In garlic, he had great faith, and he kept it in his garden, using it
to destroy the disagreeable eructation arising from castor oil, which it at
once cured or prevented. Elecampane, or aligopane as he called it (Inula
lzelenium), a rare British plant, he kept in his garden, as a potent cure
for a cough, by means of a decoction from its roots. The leaf of the greater
plantain (Plantago major) he used to stop bleeding with; and it has a
remarkable power in this way, having been long known in Scotland, on account
of this property, as "the healing leaf." It should be pulled slowly, so that
the strong fibres in the broad ribbed leaf may be drawn out.
Of knotted figwort (Scrophularia
nodosa), he made an ointment for the throat, whence the plant has also the
name thread-wort or throat-wort, and with it he once treated Charles Black.
Tansy he used as a cure for gout and for various women's diseases. Spurge he
cured warts with, by means of its milky juice. The common bluebell he made a
preparation of, to increase women's milk. Peppermint and spearmint he used
to grow in large quantities, and sell dried in bundles, for various
purposes. From one of the Polypody ferns, he made an ointment or "saw" for
burns. Lichens, "the scabs o' staves," he used to make a liniment of, for
chapped lips. For consumption, he employed, (t) the root of parsley, boiled
first alone and then with candy sugar; (2) a decoction of horehound, hyssop,
sedge, and camomile, boiled first alone and then with treacle. For
dysentery, he found "an infusion of camomile flowers a useful remedy." For
jaundice, he had a very simple cure, "two raw eggs with a little cold water
in the morning, and one egg about twelve o'clock, another about seven in the
evening, all in the same manner, by which in a very few days the distemper
would subside and the colour resume its natural hue."
As examples of plants he made
practical use of:—The gum of the gean (Prunus padus) he used as a substitute
for gum arabic, being less transparent, but as strong. The common speedwell
(Veronica officinalis) he made into a kind of tea, for which, though strong,
he said, it once used to be employed in the country. From the fine-leaved
heath (Erica cinerea), he brewed a kind of ale, said to have been used
by,our Pictish forefathers, and hence called "Picts' ale," the secret of
which, it seems, we have now lost. Wood sorrel (Oxalis acetosella), which is
prettily called in Aberdeenshire "birdies' bannocks," he employed the leaves
of, as soap; and its juice, to take out ink, containing, as it does, oxalic
acid. He was accustomed to put certain blades into his stockings next his
feet, to keep them right when on any of his long excursions. In wandering
about the country, he was always on the outlook for new practical uses of
plants, and was thus vastly pleased one time, when in Forfarshire, to find
that the factory girls there used a decoction of the avens (Gezem urbanum)
as an expectorant and tonic, to help them to get rid of the dust that
settled in their lungs in their ill-ventilated flax factories. The lichen (Lecanora
tar/area), called in Gaelic crotal, he used for dyeing a kind of
brownish-purple, as it still is in many parts of the Highlands. Another
lichen made what John called a "fool fite," that is, a foul or dirty white.
As examples of the
picturesque bits of associations he had about plants: The Lousy
earthnut(Punium fiexuosum), which is dug up by boys for its sweet, knotted
root, he said was a good food and could sustain life ; and he used to tell a
story of the Danes surrounding a party of Scots in a bog, and trying to
starve them into surrender, in vain, for the Scotch leader showed his
soldiers how to dig up these roots, which supported them till the enemy
thought them sustained by magic or heavenly aid, and went off. The spotted
persicaria (Polygonnin persicaria) he knew the usual legend of, which says
that the purple spot on its leaf was the sacred blood that dropped on it as
it grew under the cross; but he used also to tell another about it, that it
was the leaf Cain " dichtit (or cleaned) his fingers on" after murdering his
brother! The aspen, he said, shivered as it does, because it was the wood
that formed the hated cross; and he said the wandering tinkers were the
descendants of the vagabonds who made it. He took delight in gathering every
scrap of interesting matter regarding our wild flowers, and I have a set of
his notes giving the plants that were used as the badges of clans and
families.
The Cranberry, when ripe to
blackness, John used to say was "grand for giving headaches." Of Meadow
Sweet he used to quote two lines
"Pleasant as 'tis for a
nosegay,
Smell it once, and throw't away."
The power of its
over-luscious odour in causing headache and other pains, John said, arose
from its containing prussic acid—it certainly has a smell like that of
crushed almonds and other stony seeds—and he used to tell a story of four
young botanists turning very ill, by leaving it in their bedrooms, and only
being relieved when the doctor threw it outside. Of poisons to be obtained
from our common wild plants, he often said he knew as much about, as, if put
into a well, "would poison a' the fowk o' the hale countra side!".
It is now uncertain if John
ever had any real belief, like Simpson the mathematician, in the
astrological influences of the heavenly bodies on the "virtues" of plants,
as so fully laid down in Culpepper, though such belief was far from uncommon
in those days. One of his friends thinks he had, and says he used not only
to gather plants under the proper stellar conjunctions, but even to take the
horoscope of any one that wished it. I have found no proofs of this amongst
his books or notes, or from his later friends. One of these is very decided
on the subject, saying that John believed in nothing superstitious.
That he was vastly interested
in Astrology, like many others then and not a few now, seems certain, if
only from the number of books he accumulated on the subject, such as "Bo, an
Indian Astrologer," and two large and expensive works, "A Manual of
Astrology" and "The Astrologer of the Nineteenth Century;" though he
possessed none of the text-books for making the necessary calculations for
its practical study. When John Taylor used to read Culpepper's remarks on
the planetary influences on plants, in their botanical conversations, and
asked him what he thought of them, he would reply, like the thoughtful
philosopher he was, "Man, there are some terrible queer things i' the ward!"
And what is John's exclamation but an echo of Shakespeare's?
"There are more things in
heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in our philosophy."
But, whatever his earlier
predilections in favour of the superstitions connected with this remarkable
subject, gathered from his earliest master, the English astrologer, he would
seem to have thrown them entirely aside in the later and more scientific
period of his long life. |
