leechbook

English

Etymology

From Middle English leche (“doctor, physician”), from Old English lǣċe (“medical doctor”) + boc (“book”).

Noun

leechbook (plural leechbooks)

  1. A medical text of the Anglo-Saxon era; a compilation of medicinal cures and remedies used by leeches.
    • 1922, Eleanour Sinclair Rohde, The Old English Herbals, London: Longmans, Green and Co., page 5:
      This Saxon manuscript has a dignity which is unique, for it is the oldest existing leech book written in the vernacular.
    • 1940, Rosetta E. Clarkson, Green Enchantments: The Magic Spell of Gardens, The Macmillan Company, page 257:
      One of the old Leech Books gives the formula for a salve against the "elfin race and nocturnal goblin visitors." Fourteen herbs, including wormwood, viper's bugloss and fennel, were first gathered.
    • 2004, J. P. Griffin Venetian treacle and the foundation of medicines regulation
      The first was directly from Byzantine or other eastern sources, for example a Saxon leechbook of the 11th century records that Abel the Patriarch of Jerusalem sent Mithridatium or theriac to King Alfred the Great, who died on 26 October 899

See also

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