Healing words

A Royal College of Physicians (RCP) Museum exhibition exploring the unofficial story of medical practice in England 1500–1800.

Discover how people’s lives and health were shaped outside the formal medical sphere through an extraordinary collection of recipe books in the RCP Museum latest exhibition.

Recipe books were highly collaborative, incredibly detailed, and painstakingly handwritten household manuals. Produced mainly within rural communities, they contained recipes for preparing and preserving food, household products, and medical remedies.

The books show us how medicine was understood and practiced at community level. They are glimpses into a world in which communities were self-sufficient, and people were intimately connected to one another, the land, the seasons and the cosmos. Their contents contributed to the very survival of families and communities.

The exhibition is free to visit as part of your trip to the RCP Museum.