From Monks to Medicine
In August 2021 Feast's programme for Beer & Berries focused the many uses of plants in the treatment of illness. The history of modern medicine has its roots in herbalism, as our skills with organic chemistry developed individuals were able to modify and adapt plants, extracting different compounds for the treatment of disease. The days programme explored plants as both herbal medicine and a vital compound in contemporary pharmaceuticals. An expansive and rich history, the talks merely touched the surface.
Shaping the programme entailed undertaking numerous research routes. For the festival Feast compiled a selection of resources for each talk, sharing links to the experts we had been in contact with and the research projects we encountered throughout the programme’s development. Listed below are some of the people, projects and organisations that were contacted to inform the resulting programme, laying the foundations for Feast's a Botanical Library project in collaboration with Fallowfield Secret Garden.
Artemisa, Sweet Wormwood.
Botanicals & Future Medicines
The Wellcome Centre of Anti-Infectives Research in Dundee introduced their recently planted public garden. Irene Hallyburton, a researcher working to discover new drugs for the treatment of malaria talked about the role of the garden and how the different species planted told a story of the centre’s ongoing work. Ali Floyd, Public Engagement Manager at the Wellcome Centre, discussed the pocket medicinal gardens they have been initiating following the opening of their public garden. Following the talk, the Wellcome Centre team and Hospitalfield’s Head Gardener Kate Robinson planted two ‘companion beds’ in Hospitalfield's grounds - one bed of plants used in traditional herbal medicine and another with plants used in contemporary drug research.
A key plant within the contemporary bed is Artemisa or Sweet Wormwood. Artemisinin, a drug that has significantly lowered mortality rates from malaria was developed through revisiting a centuries-old Chinese remedy using Artemisa. Researcher Youyou Tu won the Nobel Prize for medicine for her research into the potential of the plant in 2015.
Research into historical herbal remedies has been undertaken by various scientific groups across the globe. Dr Freya Harrison is a founder member of the interdisciplinary AncientBiotics consortium at Nottingham University. The consortium seeks to identify, reconstruct and test infection remedies from medieval medical books in the hope of finding new agents to treat antibiotic-resistant infections. In 2015 Harrison collaborated with Dr Christina Lee from the School of English at the University of Nottingham to recreate a herbal Anglo-Saxon remedy for eye infections originating from a manuscript in the British Library. The remedy was found to successfully kill the modern-day superbug MRSA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo4K51bQVs0
Pushing further into the future of medicines Professor Marcel Jaspars, Head of the Marine Biodiscovery Centre at Aberdeen University and previously Scientific Project Leader of the EU project ‘PharmaSea’ introduced his research to Beer & Berries audiences. Focused upon looking for invertebrate and microbial life in extreme environments including the desert, deep sea and Antarctic, Marcel described how his work and that of fellow researchers across the globe is part of a continuing search for new organic compounds that can provide treatment for antibiotic resistant diseases as well as treatments for Epilepsy and degenerative neurological conditions such as Alzheimer’s. Marcel's talk further touched on the vital importance of maintaining and protecting marine biodiversity.
Communal making, caring and knowledge sharing
As part of the days workshops artist and trainee herbalist Ju Scott hosted a Solidarity Medicine Making Session. The session gave a brief overview of radical herbal organisations working in communities across the UK and introduced participants to several herbal preparations in solidarity with Herbal Unity. Throughout the workshop a calming and sleep inducing sniffer, some relaxing foot bath salts and a joint and muscle salve were made with participants discussing and learning about the ingredients and the making process with Ju. Everything produced was later distributed by Herbal Unity in their diverse communities.
Cornflower in soap, Solidarity Herbal Remedies, Ju Scott Beer & Berries 2022
The workshop was the start of a continuing project Solidarity Herbal Remedies with Ju Scott and Hospitalfield. Solidarity Herbal Remedies connects the practice of herbalism with societal structures of care through a model of solidarity. Undertaking a microresidency at Hospitalfield from July to December 2022 Ju worked with a group formed through Angus Carers Network, sharing knowledge and how to make several herbal preparations for skincare and first aid. The residency specifically looked to connect with Hospitalfield’s walled garden and grounds by making use of the what was growing in abundance on site in turn, pulling in Hospitalfield’s history as a medieval monastic herbal garden. Over six workshops, carers from around Angus learnt about these plants and their medicinal qualities and how to dry, process and prepare them into products. Following each workshop the participants took two products home (one for themselves and another for anyone they care for). Any additional herbal remedies were distributed by Hospitalfield and charity partners. The items sold by Hospitalfield were priced on a pay it forward model, meaning that for each item sold, one will also be given free to someone in the carers network or through other solidarity structures.
Considering community, Feast explored the vital role of community and inter-generational relationships in preparing and maintaining knowledge of herbal medicine. We found a selection of short films on the National Film Board of Canada's website that share stories of traditional medicine. Two films in particular follow contemporary youths as they learn how to collect and store herbs/roots from their grandparents
360 Degrees by Caroline Morat
https://www.nfb.ca/film/360_degrees_en/
First Stories
https://www.nfb.ca/film/first_stories_nganawendaanan_ndeing/
Sneha Solank, EATING THINGS, 2021
Communal knowledge sharing is a central part of artist Sneha Solanki's ongoing project EATING THINGS. EATING THINGS has grown out from a family project documenting the
journey of two children as they start to learn and eat edible ‘things’
from ‘outside’. Starting in 2010 when the eldest child was a year old,
the project became a method to ‘grow’ knowledge as the children grew.
The project has extended out an intergenerational project to grow,
deepen and develop knowledge and culture through shared learning.
Accompanied by her daughter Rasa, Sneha developed a workshop for Beer & Berries inviting participants to ‘search’ and ‘gather’ wild or non-cultivated plants and fungus from within the Hospitalfield site. The group was encouraged to share their individual knowledge and learn from others participating on the edible, medical and harmful plants and fungus found outside of conventional food systems
Stories of Growing
.
Rosie Ngwarraye Ross, Bush flowers and bush medicine plants, 2015, Medical History Museum, University of Melbourne
Exploring a history of herbalism Professor Geoff Squire, previously head of Plants, Soils and Environment at the James Hutton Institute Dundee (now honorary), gave a talk at Beer&Berries about the role of religious houses in disseminating both medicinal plant material and a knowledge of how to make a wide range of botanical medicines. As the site of a Monastic hospital, Hospitalfield is connected to a history of herbalism. Geoff discussed how particular plant species came to be grown in the UK through a European network of monastic knowledge, as well as describing some of the plants’ continued uses.
Expanding beyond a European-centric history, the following projects were used as a starting point for Feast to further learn about the pan cultural histories and uses of herbal medicine.
A history of Australian Indigenous Bush Medicine
The University of Melbourne Medical History Museum developed the exhibition “The Art of Healing: Australian Indigenous Bush Medicine” presenting examples of healing practice and bush medicine from many distinct and varied Indigenous communities across Australia. A selection of 20 works from the exhibition toured internationally in 2019 and 2020.
https://medicalhistorymuseum.mdhs.unimelb.edu.au/exhibitions/past-exhibitions
Slavery and the Natural World: The Natural History Museum London
Miranda Lowe, Principle Curator, Crustacea and Cnidaria, Natural History Museum has explored the links between nature (especially the knowledge, and its transfer, of plants), people with an interest in natural history (mainly European writers from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries) and the history and legacies of the transatlantic slave trade. She has developed research on Graman Kwasimukambe, a Surinamese freedman and the first botanist to scientifically describe the medicinal plant Quassia amara - also known as amargo, bitter-ash, bitter-wood, or hombre grande. It is a powerful emetic (a substance that can cause vomiting) and in traditional medicine it was used in the form of a tea as a digestive, to treat fever and also to ward off parasites such as lice, fleas and mosquito larvae. Taxonomist Karl Linnaeus publicised the plant's medicinal benefits, naming it after Graman Kwasi. Following Linnaeus’s writings it became one of Suriname's major exports.
https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/who-was-graman-kwasi.html
https://www.nhm.ac.uk/content/dam/nhmwww/discover/slavery-natural-world/chapter-8-medicines.pdf
Chinese Medicinal Herb Garden, University of Bristol
The Register of Chinese Herbal Medicine and the University of Bristol Botanic Garden developed the Chinese Medicinal Herb Garden in 2010. The garden is unique in Europe and grows 180 species, the largest collection of traditional Chinese medicinal herbs in the UK. It aims to provide a comprehensive collection of plants used in traditional Chinese herbal medicine. The plants are used in teaching herbal medicine through the Register of Chinese Herbal Medicine and for research by the herbal medicine profession into the cultivation and chemistry of the plants. A future research bed is being planned that will showcase plants currently being used in medicinal and botanical research. Comparative studies between Chinese and European species of the same genus are further planned.