The authors are nine physicians, the Garden Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians, London, and the Head Gardener with her team. There is a growing number of ‘Herbal Medicine Gardens’ in the UK and elsewhere, but none has yet produced anything like a book of this nature. This is a unique book about important prescription medicines from plants and the major diseases they treat and not ‘herbal remedies.” There exists no book which covers prescription medicines from plants so comprehensively. It is written by specialist physicians and gardeners, for everyone with an interest in where their medicines came from. It will fascinate every alert mind from the lay reader to physicians and surgeons, gardeners, chemists, herbalists, and plant historians. This book entertains and educates readers with the stories of the plants from which we derive effective medicines, what they were used for historically and today, how their medicinal uses were discovered, how they are made, and how they work and the diseases they treat. It describes the habitat and horticultural requirements of each of the medicinal plants so readers can discover how to grow them, written authoritatively by the gardeners at the Royal College of Physicians’ Garden of Medicinal Plants in London. Photos, paintings and sketches from the Medicinal Garden illustrate the plants today; the woodcuts from 16th and 17th century herbals aid in the understanding of the plants and their historic identities. Succinctly links conventional western medicine and plants. It is strongly supported by modern and historical references, with a bibliography of over 70 authors pre-1700, whose works are essential in the study of the history of plant-derived medicines, including brief biographies of over 20 of them.

The authors are nine physicians, the Garden Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians, London, and the Head Gardener with her team. There is a growing number of ‘Herbal Medicine Gardens’ in the UK and elsewhere, but none has yet produced anything like a book of this nature. This is a unique book about important prescription medicines from plants and the major diseases they treat and not ‘herbal remedies.” There exists no book which covers prescription medicines from plants so comprehensively. It is written by specialist physicians and gardeners, for everyone with an interest in where their medicines came from. It will fascinate every alert mind from the lay reader to physicians and surgeons, gardeners, chemists, herbalists, and plant historians. This book entertains and educates readers with the stories of the plants from which we derive effective medicines, what they were used for historically and today, how their medicinal uses were discovered, how they are made, and how they work and the diseases they treat. It describes the habitat and horticultural requirements of each of the medicinal plants so readers can discover how to grow them, written authoritatively by the gardeners at the Royal College of Physicians’ Garden of Medicinal Plants in London. Photos, paintings and sketches from the Medicinal Garden illustrate the plants today; the woodcuts from 16th and 17th century herbals aid in the understanding of the plants and their historic identities. Succinctly links conventional western medicine and plants. It is strongly supported by modern and historical references, with a bibliography of over 70 authors pre-1700, whose works are essential in the study of the history of plant-derived medicines, including brief biographies of over 20 of them.

Timothy Leary's advice to "tune in, turn on and drop out" was a 1960s exhortation to experiment with LSD, but humans had been consuming ergot alkaloids related to lysergic acid diethylamide for at least a thousand years. Opium has been around even longer with its medicinal uses being known to the Ancient Sumerians as long ago as 3400 BC. This is the first book to cover all of the major psychoactive drugs (both natural and synthetic) in one volume, and the only one to cover all aspects of these drugs from their anthropological and sociological influences through to their chemistry and pharmacology. It covers a range of substances including LSD, opium, heroin, cocaine, cannabis, peyote, belladonna, mandrake, and absinthe. The book is highly readable and concentrates on the characters (e.g. authors, painters, pop stars, hippies, politicians and drug barons), both famous and infamous, who have ensured that psychoactive drugs hold an enduring fascination and interest for everyone. The basic chemistry and pharmacological activity covered together with a brief account of useful drugs that have emerged from a study of the psychoactive ones.