title: On "officinalis" the names of plants as one enduring history of therapeutic medicine.
abstract: The officina was the building, usually an out-building, in medieval monasteries where medical monks prepared medicaments and pharmaceutical preparations to heal the sick. Dried extracts, infusions, decoctions, tinctures and distillates were prepared therein. Often the officina was attached to the medicinal or herbal gardens, also enclosed within the monastery precinct. When Linnaeus invented the binomial system of nomenclature, he gave the specific name "officinalis", to dozens of herbs and plants whose medical use had been established in preceding millennia. In the 1735 (1st Edition) of his Systema Naturae, he acknowledged the historical traditions of healing by naming scores of plants with the species designator, "officinalis", as a generic qualifier. Literally "from the officina", the species name "officinalis" thus embodied the history of many centuries of medicinal use and health lore.
authors.affiliation: International Society of the History of Medicine and Preceptor, School of Medicine, University of Queensland. j.pearn@uq.edu.au
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pearn
mesh_terms: D049668:History, 15th Century; D049669:History, 16th Century; D049670:History, 17th Century; D049671:History, 18th Century; D049691:History, Medieval; D006801:Humans; D008519:Medicine, Traditional / Q000266:history*; D008517:Phytotherapy / Q000266:history*; D009626:Terminology as Topic