leechbook
English
editEtymology
editFrom Middle English leche (“blood-sucking worm”), from Old English lǣċe (“medical doctor”) + boc (“book”).
Noun
editleechbook (plural leechbooks)
- A medical text of the Anglo-Saxon era; a compilation of medicinal cures and remedies used by leeches.
- 1940, Rosetta E. Clarkson, Green Enchantments: The Magic Spell of Gardens, The Macmillan Company, page 257:
- One of the old Leech Books gives the formula for a salve against the "elfin race and nocturnal goblin visitors." Fourteen herbs, including wormwood, viper's bugloss and fennel, were first gathered.
- 2004, J. P. Griffin Venetian treacle and the foundation of medicines regulation
- The first was directly from Byzantine or other eastern sources, for example a Saxon leechbook of the 11th century records that Abel the Patriarch of Jerusalem sent Mithridatium or theriac to King Alfred the Great, who died on 26 October 899
See also
edit- Bald's Leechbook on Wikipedia.Wikipedia