Diet & Food Pharmacy Across the Centuries

The Course

This course explores the concepts of superfoods and food pharmacy. From Roman health guidance on meat and knowing how the animal had lived, to the cooling and heating properties of vegetables and their use in treatments, and Anglo-Saxon guidance and theories on the causes of disease, the day will investigate how attitudes to diet have changed as a result of new developments in food and science.

We will make Anglo-Saxon lung pottage and medieval treatments for conditions for coughs and open wounds as well as an inhalation from the 18th century and compound barley water from 100 years later. As the philosophy and knowledge of medicine changes and we discover diet drinks and strengthening broths, we track the corresponding emphasis on diet both to avoid and treat disease together with the discovery and re-discovery of the therapeutic properties of some foods.

The Tutor

Christina Stapley BSc (Hons) MCPP is now a retired qualified medical herbalist with a degree in Phytotherapy (plant therapy). She has grown some 300 herbs, studied and used them for over 30 years. Her Hampshire garden was featured on television several times. She has written three books on cultivating and using herbs in cookery, fragrant recipes, wines and liqueurs, crafts and home remedies. Christina has also edited and interpreted a 17th century book of cookery and physic recipes. Christina now lives in Wiltshire and teaches History of Western Herbal Medicine, Pharmacognosy and Materia Medica for the School of Herbal Medicine. In 2021 her two volumes of The Tree Dispensary were published by Aeon Books.

Participant Information

Please bring with you a pen and paper and suitable clothing footwear as you will spend part of the day outside. The course may take place in an historic building which can be cool, it is advisable to wear warm layers.

Fee & Refreshments

£75 per person, including tuition, teas and coffees. Please let the Museum know in advance of any dietary requirements. The Museum café will be open for lunch or alternatively participants can bring their own packed lunch