''Köhler's Medicinal Plants'' (or, ''Köhler's Medizinal-Pflanzen'') is a German
herbal
A herbal is a book containing the names and descriptions of plants, usually with information on their medicinal, tonic, culinary, toxic, hallucinatory, aromatic, or magical powers, and the legends associated with them.Arber, p. 14. A herbal ...
written principally by Hermann Adolph Köhler (1834 - 1879, physician and chemist), and edited after his death by Gustav Pabst. The work was first published in the late 19th century by Franz Eugen Köhler of
Gera
Gera is a city in the German state of Thuringia. With around 93,000 inhabitants, it is the third-largest city in Thuringia after Erfurt and Jena as well as the easternmost city of the ''Thüringer Städtekette'', an almost straight string of cit ...
. Its complete title is .
Publication history
Originally, Köhler published the herbal in two volumes: the first in 1887, the second in 1890. Volume one is illustrated with 84 full-page, multi-colour plates, and volume two with 110. A third volume was added in 1898, entitled ''Neueste Medizinalpflanzen und Verwechslungen'', which is a supplement containing additions and corrections. Among the additions are 80 more colour plates. A fourth volume was announced by the publisher, but never released. All the colour plates in the herbal were produced through a process called ''
chromolithography
Chromolithography is a method for making multi-colour prints. This type of colour printing stemmed from the process of lithography, and includes all types of lithography that are printed in colour. When chromolithography is used to reproduce p ...
''. The
botanical illustrator
Botanical illustration is the art of depicting the form, color, and details of plant species, frequently in watercolor paintings. They must be scientifically accurate but often also have an artistic component and may be printed with a botanical ...
s were
Walther Otto Müller
Walther Otto Müller, also Otto Müller, (20 June 1833 – 17 July 1887, in Gera) was a German botanist and gardner.Frahm & Eggers: ''Lexikon deutschsprachiger Bryologen.'' He was mainly interested in Cryptogamae, in particular lichen and mosses. ...
, C. F. Schmidt, and K. Gunther.
A
reprint
A reprint is a re-publication of material that has already been previously published. The term ''reprint'' is used with slightly different meanings in several fields.
Academic publishing
In academic publishing, offprints, sometimes also known a ...
was published in Germany a century after the original, first of extracts of the work, later the complete three volumes.
The name ''Köhler'' is sometimes
corrupted to ''Koehler'' or ''Kohler''.
Because of the identical names of first author and publisher, frequently Franz Eugen Köhler is erroneously mentioned as the author of the book.
Illustration samples
File:Carica papaya - Köhler–s Medizinal-Pflanzen-028.jpg, ''Carica papaya
The papaya (, ), papaw, () or pawpaw () is the plant species ''Carica papaya'', one of the 21 accepted species in the genus '' Carica'' of the family Caricaceae. It was first domesticated in Mesoamerica, within modern-day southern Mexico and ...
'' L. (whole plant, flowers)
File:koeh-029.jpg, ''Carica papaya
The papaya (, ), papaw, () or pawpaw () is the plant species ''Carica papaya'', one of the 21 accepted species in the genus '' Carica'' of the family Caricaceae. It was first domesticated in Mesoamerica, within modern-day southern Mexico and ...
'' L. (whole plant, fruits)
Reprint editions
* ''Reprint von Auszügen aus dem Gesamtwerk nach der zweibändigen Original-Ausgabe 1887/88''
ecte ''90'' Edition Libri rari im Verlag Schäfer, Hannover 1988, .
* ''Zweite Reprintausgabe''. Edition Libri rari im Verlag Schäfer, Hannover:
** 1. Band, 1990, .
** 2. Band, 1990, .
** 3. Band, 1991, .
References