Another herbal (see New Kreüterbuch) in this exhibition, Archer’s book, is a “compendious, though Brief” compilation of names for different herbs and their general characteristics and recommended usages. The leaves of alder tree, for instance, “put to the bare feet gauled with travelling,” are recommended for being “very refreshing.” According to the author, John Archer (fl. 1660-1684), King Charles II’s court physician, this book, a follow-up to his earlier Every Man his own Doctor (1671), seeks to turn readers “in short time” into “Competent Herbalist.” Its “brevity” was intended to make the book “more portable” and “more useful, as a Vade Mecum” (“go with me” in Latin) or reference book.
The owner of this copy, apparently Charles Wealey (according to the inscribed title page), allowed it to function even more as a vade mecum by creating a meticulously organized index on several blank leaves inserted at the back of the book. The terms in the index are of such wide-ranging and general ailments as “cough,” “cramp,” “bruises,” “belly ach,” “astma,” “gout,” “fatnesse,” “baldneses,” “dissentary.” By extracting the pertinent topics from each herb entry and compiling them alphabetically with corresponding page numbers in an index, the book owner mapped out the spaces of the book in terms of his own needs and made them easy to find. In this way the creation of an index was the operative step taken to turn Archer’s book decisively from an object to be read to an object to be consulted frequently. Given the comprehensiveness and density of the index, it is clear the book was subject to great care, both as an object of reading and an object of use in the owner’s daily life. As a soiled and worn volume, it apparently went where the owner did indeed.