Kinda cool thing from UA Press

Herbal history

They're reprinting The English Physician, a book of herbal remedies that was the first medical book printed in the English colonies of North America. It was a pirate edition, naturally.

People were stupider then:

There was a time when tobacco was considered a cure for a cough. Rhubarb was used to treat bruises. And walnuts were a treatment for fever...

For example, dill was imported as a cure for the hiccups, English ivy was imported as a cure for cramps, and fennel was imported as a treatment for cataracts.

Well, at least the last ones didn't hurt. As for the first, I will quote King James I, 100 years prior:

"loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the horrible stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless."

Shorter King James I: Tobacco is yucky.