Archivist Stacey Peeples displays a hand-written text with a recipe for 'stomach pills.' (Photo: Todd Vachon/WHYY)

The nation's first hospital culled its archives to create a collection of medical and botanical texts from the 18th and early 19th century.

The exhibit, “Flower to Pharmacy,” is housed at the Pennsylvania Hospital Historic Collections in Philadelphia. The illustrations are beautiful, the hand-written lecture notes from medical students are fun to decipher, but maybe most striking is the physicians' focus on body fluids.

Phlegm was a big deal in Colonial times.

“They really believed that these systems were out of whack and you had to do something to bring it back into order,” said curator and archivist Stacey Peeples.

Doctors practiced “humoral medicine,” an ancient idea that health comes from a balance of the body's four humors–phlegm, blood, yellow bile and black bile. In addition to bloodletting, physicians relied on sweating and purging and needed the right mix of flowers, roots and herbs to make that happen.

A view of the library inside the historic Pennsylvania Hospital (Photo: Todd Vachon/WHYY)

The exhibit is a compendium of plants used for medicine as well as prescriptions for pills and poultices. Long lists detail the healing properties of blue flag and yellow-button tansy as well as familiar kitchen herbs such as ginger, rosemary and thyme.

In “The American Practice of Medicine,” Connecticut-born Wooster Beach writes that peppermint is “agreeable and penetrating, slightly bitter, followed by a sensation of cold in the mouth” and good for settling the stomach.

You can also look up ways to fight flatulence, hysteria, dropsy (inflammation), piles (hemorrhoids) and cardialgia (heartburn).

One of the oldest texts is a 1633 edition of John Gerard's “Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes.” The English herbalist includes detailed line drawings and warnings against the most poisonous plants.

“For them to say something will kill you immediately, probably means it was pretty harsh,” Peeples said. “Given the amount of enemas and purgatives these people were taking. It had to be really bad. We like to call it “heroic medicine,” that idea that the physician will go to any means to cure you, even if meant killing you.”

Most of the books were part of the hospital's active lending library and are amazingly preserved, especially Mark Catesby's “Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands.” It's a picture book of plants and insects illustrated on deeply saturated color plates – and lovely for art’s sake alone.

Wendy Grube is a nurse practitioner and registered herbalist who teaches a course on alternative therapies at the University of Pennsylvania. She collects her own historical volumes on plant medicine and has done research in the Pennsylvania Hospital archives.

“Flower to Pharmacy” includes some of the first “materia medica” produced for an American audience, and Grube says the meticulous anthologies are fascinating for modern day herbalists.

Early colonial doctors had a very different conception of disease and hadn’t discovered viruses or bacteria, but Grube says that didn’t keep them from hitting on the true medicinal value of plants.

Sage, for instance, is antimicrobial and thyme has anti-viral properties.

Physicians made connections from careful observation over time, Grube says. Doctors likely didn’t understand that an herb was killing off microbes, but it was clear that certain plants helped for cold and cough, she said.

“Flower to Pharmacy” collects the texts used by white, male physicians at Pennsylvania Hospital in the 1700s, but Grube says their records include knowledge learned from Native Americans and traced back to ancient Egypt and Greece.

Curator Stacey Peeples said some of the information in the library collection was surely common knowledge among Colonial women who kept their own recipe books.

“Today if you have a headache, you don't run to the hospital,” Peeples said. “The first thing do, is you take an aspirin. It was similar at that time. The woman was entrusted with the care of the family.”

“Why did these traditions happen? They happened because they were effective. I don't think people really waste their time on things that aren't effective,” Grube said.

Plant Modifications poster by Kandis Elliot. Click on the image for a larger size.

Kandis Elliot didn’t think she’d make art her profession. “When I was in high school and thinking of a career, we were told back then that you can't make a living as an artist and if you're smart enough you go into the sciences,” said Elliot. She was smart enough- and interested enough- in the sciences to graduate from the University of Wisconsin with a BA in biology and Masters in zoology. “In all these courses I drew like crazy without letting too many people see these drawings,” she recalls.

But art drew her back and after her advanced degree Elliot returned to school, this time in a technical college program in commercial art. Shortly after that, the perfect opportunity came knocking. “I was out about a month when four people, four or five people called me up the same day and said, ‘The botany artist is leaving, go apply for a position,’" Elliot says. The position was as staff artist for the University of Wisconsin’s Botany department, one of the best in the country.

Elliot was strong on science and gifted in art, but she also had another card up her sleeve, “I knew back in 1988 there was this new thing called Apple Computer where you could draw a perfect square. You didn't need a right angle. You could draw a perfect circle, you didn't need a compass. And I said, ‘Surely you want to do this kind of work on a computer.’ And they said, ‘Alright, let's try it.’"

Kandis Elliot's poster "Introduction to Fungi". Click on the image for a larger size.

The idea of using computers appealed to the scientists, but Elliot had never actually used one. So she went to the campus computer center, held up a hundred dollar bill, offering it to anyone who could teach her how to use an Apple. That investment paid off in a position she held for over two decades. As the botany artist, she created charts and graphs for countless scientific publications and perfected the art of digital painting. Starting with less-than-perfect images taken by scientists in the field, or dried, pressed plant samples, Elliot’s job was to transform them into striking, painterly objects that could hold a student’s attention.

“It makes your eye dwell on the picture a little bit longer,” says Elliot, “I guess the only way I can describe it is that the paintings say, ‘Look at me.’”

After years spent shining the spotlight on nature’s botanical beauty, Kandis Elliot retired from the University of Wisconsin in 2011. But not before receiving one of the highest honors in her profession. A poster titled “Introduction to Fungi” won the 2010 prize for information graphics in the National Science Foundation’s International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge. Mushrooms capped a brilliant career.

Professor Gordon Frankie of UC Berkeley was an early adopter of urban beekeeping.

Professor Gordon Frankie of UC Berkeley was an early adopter of urban beekeeping. In the late 1990s, he started the Urban Bee Project, an experimental project to document bee populations in the Bay Area. Gordon used this data to plant a bee garden right in downtown Berkeley (how he managed to get approval of that is mystery to me). The project has catalogued over 80 species of native bees, a number expected to grow well over 100. Gordon has even used the research to create a bee-friendly garden builder.

Gordon will discuss the Urban Bee Project at the next East Bay Science Café. In addition, there are a whole host of local beekeeping organizations that offer educational events.

Native Bees: A rich natural resource in urban California gardens

When: Wednesday, September 2^nd 2009

Where: East Bay Science Café, La Pena Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley

Cost: FREE

Local Beekeeping Organizations

• Alameda County Beekeepers Association
• Santa Clara Valley Beekeepers Guild
• Santa Cruz Guild for Beekeepers
• Mount Diablo Beekeepers Association
• Sonoma County Beekeepers
• San Francisco Beekeepers Association
• San Mateo Bee Guild
• Marin County Beekeepers

Also, you can watch QUEST's TV story "Better Bees: Super Bee and Wild Bee" below:

QUEST on KQED Public Media.

37.852845 -122.26593

Harold Davis as he prepares to shoot a variety of plants in his beautiful garden.

You might think that TV producers look down their noses at still photography, but that's far from the truth! Photography is a big passion for many of us here at QUEST; the production stills from some of our field shoots show some amazing talent.

Looking back on previous winners and submissions, I really wanted to find someone for this YPOQ whose work was really different than what we’ve done in the past. It was much harder than I anticipated! So when I came across Harold Davis’ photos on Flickr, I knew he was the one, and I instantly contacted him. (And at every possible email address I could find!)

The hardest thing about pulling this segment together was determining which of Harold’s photographs to use! Browsing through his thousands of photos on Flickr, and his professional website, you can see the breadth of his subjects. In the end, the ones that spoke to me, the ones that really pulled me in, came from his flower garden at his home. How fabulous, to have your “models” right outside your door!

The other thing that really made an impression on me was the way Harold is able to show you things in a way you wouldn’t normally see. His water drop images and night photography really showcase his ability to create what his mind can see, but the naked eye cannot. This is my favorite approach to art: playing with expectations; inviting your audience to experience things in different a way than in your day-to-day life.

If you enjoyed this segment, I highly encourage you to check out more of his work at his website, and his digital photography blog. Once there, you will discover that he holds Night Photography workshops and has several books published.

Watch the YPOQ television story online.

37.898216 -122.277497

Quest Educational Resources

 Print Guide - Pescadero State Beach

 Pescadero State Beach KML File

 Tips to get the kids in your life out into nature

 Designing an Exploration on Google Maps

Additional Links

• Pescadero State Beach

For us humans, that might mean flirty skirts, a new perfume, a dapper new hat or hip hair cut, all in the hopes of attracting a new, or very old and loyal, perfect mate. Plants also feel the call of spring and respond. They too show off their brightest colors, excrete their most seductive scents and attempt to lure a mate. Of course, plants can't move (very quickly), so they hire a pollinating partner, and pay them to assist with reproduction.

Pollination is the act of moving pollen from the male anther to the female stigma. Plants work hard to attract these pollinators, and nectar is their delicious reward. Plants and their flowers take their job of attracting so seriously, that they have evolved to become irresistible to their pollinator. Pollinators, in turn, have adapted to a particular plant. Some of these Co-evolved partners have become so exclusive, that one could not survive without the other. Thus, attracting that pollinator is vital. Perhaps, with these tricks of attraction, we can all have a successful spring!

Like some humans, snapdragons have stooped to trapping. As an unsuspecting bee, just interested in a good dinner, sits on a lower petal, their weight causes the stamen to tip downward and dump dusty pollen on the bee's fuzzy body to carry onward.

The honeysuckle takes advantage of those who prefer the nightlife. Nocturnal moths are turned on by the pale white flowers that glow in the moon light and the alluring nighttime scent.

The African Raflessia flower knows that their partner has an unusual fetish and radiates a once-a-year stench of rotting flesh. Its petals peel away, revealing a brownish, fleshy color and the smitten flies come at once.

Queen Anne's lace takes pity on pollinators with short proboscises (ahem…) and offers pollen at the base of their tiny flowers, where bees, ants, wasps and beetles can easily dine.

The columbine flower offers very potent nectar in a bright, red, long flower: perfect for the active hummingbird with their long tongue and penchant for the color red.

In Madagascar, The 40ft Travelers Tree attracts the black and white ruffed lemur to climb the trunk, pull apart the flower bracts and stick their snout and tongues deep inside the flower. Nobody could do it better.

The agave plant works hard to attract the long-nosed bat with its night-blooming, tall flowers and strong nectar. (So if you were planning on a date that included tequila, you and the agave may thank a bat).

Now, why should we care about all of this wild romance? One reason is that one out of every three bites we take comes from a pollinated plant. Another is that without pollinating partners, we would miss out on such aphrodisiacs as strawberries, blueberries, garlic and chocolate.

So this spring, on your next dinner date, thank a pollinator for the delicious meal and know that the plants and I wish you the best of luck and love.

To learn more about pollinators, visit www.coevolution.org and attend a lecture on April 3^rd at The Oakland Zoo: Connecting Pollinators, Plants and People with Laurie Adams (www.oaklandzoo.org/news_and_events/detail/248).

Amy Gotliffe is Conservation Manager at The Oakland Zoo.