The Common Aloe

Elizabeth Blachrie Blackwell (1707-1758) was a Scottish botanical illustrator and the author of A Curious Herbal, published in 1737 and 1739. Blackwell was the first woman to have singularly published an herbal, an encyclopedia detailing the medicinal properties of plants.

This illustration of the Aloe vulgaris is one of 500 botanical species Blackwell painted from living specimens at the Chelsea Physic Garden, a garden developed to educate apothecaries on plant identification. Between 1737 and 1739, Blackwell published weekly four plates that she had drawn, engraved, and hand-coloured herself. Blackwell also engraved the text of the work, an unusual practice in botanical manuscripts. Traditionally the production of such an herbal would have employed three separate artists, but Blackwell completed all three tasks herself. The College of Physicians, when presented with Blackwell’s creation, issued a glowing endorsement. Previous herbals sorely lacked the comprehensiveness of Blackwell’s atlas of medicinal plants, and Blackwell enjoyed financial success from her work. She used the proceeds from her herbal to liberate her husband from debtor’s prison.

Of Aloe vulgaris or “the Common Aloe,” Blackwell writes, “The Stalks grow about two or three Foot high, the Leaves are a whitish green, and the Flowers a pale yellow. It grows in Spain, Italy and the West Indies, flowering in the Spring… Aloes is a purging Medicine much in Use, and very beneficial to cold moist Constitutions, but is seldom given by it self unless it be to children for [the] Worms…”