The Complete Herbal .

Nicholas Culpeper (probably born at Ockley, Surrey, 18 October 1616 - died at Spitalfields, London, 10 January 1654) was an English botanist, herbalist, physician, and astrologer. His books include The English Physitian (1652), later known as the Complete Herbal (1653 ff.), which contains a store of pharmaceutical and herbal knowledge, and Astrological Judgement of Diseases from the Decumbiture of the Sick (1655), one of the most detailed documents on the practice of medical astrology in Early Modern Europe. He spent much of his life in outdoors cataloguing hundreds of medicinal herbs. He criticized the methods of some contemporaries: "This not being pleasing, and less profitable to me, I consulted with my two brothers, Dr. Reason and Dr. Experience, and took a voyage to visit my mother Nature, by whose advice, together with the help of Dr. Diligence, I at last obtained my desire; and, being warned by Mr. Honesty, a stranger in our days, to publish it to the world, I have done it." Culpeper came of a long line of notabilities, including Thomas Culpeper, lover of Catherine Howard (also a distant relative), who was sentenced to death by Catherine's husband, King Henry VIII.