„Von der Krafft und Würckung": Plants as food and medicine reread in Hieronymus Bock's ‘Kreütter Buch’ (1539)

Plants form an integral part of our diet, provide food for our livestock and are an important source of medicines and remedies.

The systematic description of plants began in ancient times with work from Aristotle's student Theophrastus. Greco-Roman physicians such as Dioscorides also regarded plants as the basis for a healthy diet and for the treatment of diseases. In the 16th century, the physicians and plant researchers Hieronymus Bock, Otto Brunfels and Leonhart Fuchs (also known as the “fathers of botany”) laid groundwork for modern systematic botany in Germany. They compiled the knowledge of the time of plant species occuring in Central Europe. They described in detail their specific benefits for human nutrition as well as for the healing and prevention of diseases.

The natural history exhibition shows book pages with selected plant species from an original “Kreütter Buch” by Hieronymus Bock from 1572. The book is artfully illustrated and hand-colored with impressively detailed, partly iconographic woodcuts by David Kandel.

Immerse yourself in the state of knowledge at the time about the biology of plants and their use for nutrition and medicine and discover interesting facts from today's research perspective.