At first glance, The Herbalist is an old book about medicinal plants. In reality, it is also a story about education, language and the belief that knowledge should belong not only to scholars, but to ordinary people as well.
When Juraj Fándly prepared his Malí Zeľinkár in 1793, the idea of a standard Slovak literary language was still remarkably young.
A book about plants, illnesses and everyday care for health was therefore more than a practical handbook. It formed part of a much larger Enlightenment project: to bring knowledge closer to ordinary people and to demonstrate that Slovak could also be used to speak about the world, nature, agriculture, health and learning.
More than two centuries later, selected passages from Fándly's Zelinkár became part of the interior of St. Martin Pharmacia.
Juraj Fándly: priest, Enlightenment thinker and teacher of the people
Juraj Fándly was born on 21 October 1750 in Častá and became one of the most important personalities of the first phase of the Slovak National Revival.
He was a Catholic priest, writer, Enlightenment thinker and one of the most active representatives of the movement surrounding Anton Bernolák and the first codified form of the Slovak literary language.
He spent the largest part of his active life as a parish priest in Naháč, where he worked from 1780 until 1807. His interests, however, reached far beyond the life of the clergy. He knew the poverty of the Slovak countryside and the practical difficulties faced by the people around him.
This is why he wrote books intended to be useful. He taught people about farming, cultivating land, beekeeping, running a household and, within the medical knowledge of his time, caring for their health.
For Fándly, the Enlightenment was not an abstract philosophy. Knowledge was supposed to improve everyday life.
1750
Born in Častá, near the Little Carpathians.
1780 – 1807
Served as parish priest in Naháč.
1789
Dúverná zmlúva was published, an important early literary work written in Bernolák's codified Slovak.
1792
Became one of the leading figures of the Slovak Learned Society.
1793
Malí Zeľinkár was published in Trnava.
1811
Died in Ompitál, today's Doľany.
When Slovak became the language of books
In 1787, Anton Bernolák codified the first standard form of the Slovak literary language. A grammar alone, however, was not enough.
A new literary language needed books, readers and writers who would actually use it.
Juraj Fándly became one of its most important advocates. He used it for religious texts, polemics, agricultural manuals, historical works and books intended for practical education.
This is an essential part of his importance. In Fándly's hands, Slovak became more than a symbol of national identity. It became a working language of knowledge — a language in which one could explain, advise, educate and describe the realities of everyday life.
Fándly believed that through writing and published books, Slovak could take its place among the other cultural languages of Europe. Books were to demonstrate how much could be expressed and communicated in Slovak.
The Slovak Learned Society
In 1792, the Slovak Learned Society (Slovenské učené tovarišstvo) was established in Trnava. It was the first nationwide Slovak cultural organisation and brought together supporters of Bernolák's literary Slovak.
Its purpose was to publish books in the newly codified language, spread education and support Slovak cultural and national awareness. Fándly was among its founding and most active members.
Zelinkár is directly connected with this story. In 1793, it appeared as the fourth publication financed by the Slovak Learned Society and was printed by Václav Jelínek in Trnava.
Malí Zeľinkár: a household apothecary in book form
The full historical title of the work was characteristically long: Malí Zeľinkár, z veľkých zelinkárskych kníh vytiahnutý, vykladajúci krátke, ale zreteľné a veľmi užitočné rady s obyčajnými zelinkami proti nemocám obidvojakého ľudského pokolenia.
Even the title reveals its purpose. It was not meant to be an academic work written exclusively for physicians and scholars. It was conceived as a practical household handbook — particularly valuable in places where a doctor or urban pharmacy could not easily be reached.
Fándly describes plants, their collection and preservation and the ways in which they were believed to be used at the time. The advice covers digestion, breathing, sleep, the heart, pain, melancholy, women's ailments and many other conditions that medicine at the end of the 18th century attempted to understand.
From today's perspective, it is important to read Zelinkár as a historical document. Not all of its remedies originated with Fándly himself. The book is largely a compilation and adaptation of earlier medical and herbal literature, particularly Ján Tonsoris's Sana Consilia Medica, or Zdravá rada lekárska, published in Skalica in 1771.
Fándly organised and adapted the material and introduced it with his own preface. His contribution therefore lies not only in the remedies themselves, but particularly in making this body of knowledge accessible to Slovak readers.
Zelinkár was, in its own way, a household encyclopaedia of health. It connected older European medical knowledge, experience with plants and the Enlightenment idea that useful knowledge should also be available to people living far from a city, school or physician.
Why Zelinkár matters in Slovak cultural history
Today, it would be easy to regard Zelinkár merely as a curious old book filled with remedies, some of which have long since been superseded by modern medicine.
Its true significance is much broader.
Language
It demonstrated that Slovak could be used for practical and specialised writing, not only everyday speech.
Education
It brought knowledge previously associated mainly with educated circles closer to a wider population.
The Enlightenment
It expressed the belief that people's lives could be improved through education, experience and practical knowledge.
National culture
It formed part of the project of creating a Slovak book culture in the first codified Slovak literary language.
Zelinkár therefore belongs not only to the history of medicinal plants. It also belongs to the history of the Slovak language, education and the Slovak National Revival.
A book intended to be useful
Fándly's world connected knowledge with practicality. A book was meaningful when a person could open it at home — while working, during illness, in the garden or on the farm.
Zelinkár at St. Martin Pharmacia
The history of Zelinkár became one of the motifs incorporated into the interior of St. Martin Pharmacia.
Seven artworks are displayed in the corridor. Each works with a selected passage from Fándly's Zelinkár and combines the text with a botanical illustration of one or more plants mentioned in the passage.
The text is visually rendered in a historical blackletter style inspired by Schwabacher typography. The author of the artworks, Jana Španírová, enriched the texts with illustrations of herbs from the book The British Herbal: An History of Plants and Trees, Natives of Britain, Cultivated for Use, or Raised for Beauty by John Hill, M.D. from the same period. Together with the botanical illustrations and aged-paper appearance, the lettering evokes the world of historic pharmacies, herbals and old printed books.
The artworks are not merely decoration. They refer to one of the fundamental ideas behind Pharmacia: the meeting of health, nature, education, history and art.
The seven artworks form a single story. Walking through the corridor becomes, symbolically, a journey through the pages of a book printed in Trnava more than two centuries ago.
Historical note: The texts below are English translations of historical passages represented in the artworks and are presented exclusively for cultural and documentary purposes. They are not modern medical recommendations. Some historical practices are obsolete, and some plants mentioned in the text — including poison hemlock — are toxic and can be dangerous.
Seven artworks from Zelinkár
Selected passages from the work of Juraj Fándly as part of the interior of St. Martin Pharmacia.
How to preserve health throughout life
Some good and effective plants
Aloe vera
Aloe softens and opens the bowels and produces stool, purges bile and phlegm and strengthens the stomach. When added to another remedy, it also helps protect the stomach from the effects of purging.
It was considered beneficial for a chilled liver and was believed to dispel jaundice. It belonged among the important remedies of the apothecary and was added to various medicines.
Because it is very bitter, whoever wished to take it alone was advised to make it into small pills and take one or one and a half historical units of weight; for a stronger purge, three were recommended.
The historical text further states that taking it regularly could protect a person from various ailments. Aloe was combined with myrrh and saffron in pills known as aleophangines.
These were believed to benefit the head and stomach, remove phlegm and impurities and ease the bowels.
To cleanse the head, the text recommends taking them after a modest evening meal before going to sleep; for purging the stomach, before supper.
For strengthening the head and brain
Lavandula · Valeriana officinalis
Valerian and lavender are described as excellent herbs against what historical medicine considered cold ailments of the brain and nerves, as well as dizziness, seizures, drowsiness, cramps, trembling and contraction of the limbs.
They were believed to warm a chilled stomach, relieve wind, promote urination and menstruation, assist after childbirth, open obstructions of the liver and spleen and help against jaundice and the beginnings of dropsy.
The text recommends combining them with herbs and spices such as horehound, cinnamon, fennel, asparagus or parsley and boiling valerian and lavender in wine or water.
A distilled preparation was also considered useful, particularly against fainting. If a person collapsed and could not speak, the text recommends giving several spoonfuls.
Applied externally, valerian or lavender was also believed to relieve headache and dizziness.
Illnesses of the heart
How to strengthen and fortify the heart
Melissa officinalis · Nymphaea alba
Lemon balm is described as having excellent power: it was believed to strengthen and refresh a heart that was troubled and restless during the night.
It was said to cleanse dark and overheated blood, prevent faintness and melancholic sorrow and serve a cold and damp stomach as well as various internal organs.
Its decoction in white wine was believed to have similar effects when taken for several days. The text also attributes to it the ability to clear the chest, ease shortness of breath, strengthen the heart and brain and help against seizures and the effects of bites.
An oil from water-lily flowers was prepared by placing the flowers in oil in a glass vessel and leaving them in the sun for several days.
Applied externally, this oil was historically considered beneficial for the heart and was believed to reduce fever, faintness and weakness.
Against weakness and fainting
Ocimum basilicum · Mentha × piperita · Convallaria majalis · Paeonia officinalis
Basil boiled in water prepared with medicinal bugloss was believed to help against fainting and other troubles associated with the heart. It was also recommended for sorrowful people troubled by heavy thoughts.
Lily of the valley, while still fresh and fragrant, was placed in a bottle with good wine vinegar or malvasia wine. The bottle was sealed and left in a sunny window. This preparation was historically considered useful against dizziness and fainting.
Crushed mint mixed with vinegar and held beneath the nose was believed to revive those lying unconscious.
Fresh mint leaves, crushed and held near the nose, were said to strengthen the brain and vital force and drive away faintness.
The passage also gives a remedy against the night-mare — understood historically as a sensation of being oppressed or suffocated during sleep. Crushed red peony seeds were to be mixed with honey or wine and consumed.
Diseases of the chest
On ailments of the breast, lungs and throat, and against coughing
Viola alba
The historical text recommends powdered violet root mixed with honey or barley water and slowly allowed to pass down the throat. It was believed to be beneficial when the chest and lungs were congested with phlegm and a person suffered from persistent coughing or difficulty breathing.
The text then describes the preparation of a violet syrup against coughing and excessive moisture. Fresh white violets were placed in a vessel, covered with hot water, sealed and left to stand for several hours.
The flowers were then pressed and the liquid strained, reheated and poured over a fresh batch of violets. This process was repeated several times.
Sugar was then added to the strained violet water and the mixture was slowly boiled until it thickened to a consistency resembling honey. Once cooled, the syrup was stored in a glass vessel.
The passage notes that similar syrups could be prepared from roses, other flowers and fresh herbs. Apothecaries also made syrups from pressed herbal juices combined with sugar or boiled honey.
How to restrain excessive desire
Salix alba · Conium maculatum
The historical passage states that seeds, leaves and flowers of certain plants added to food and drink, or even placed in the bed, were believed to diminish excessive bodily desire.
Willow leaves added to drink and rue eaten with food were attributed a similar effect. The text also mentions lentils.
Crushed leaves of poison hemlock were likewise historically recommended for external application to the genital area.
Historical note within the original passage: the author asks readers not to be offended by the subject, arguing that these too are ailments worthy of discussion. The text concludes with the Latin expression Castis sunt omnia casta et foedis omnia foeda — roughly, “to the pure all things are pure, while to the impure all things are impure.”
When a person loses reason because they cannot possess something they deeply desire
Anchusa officinalis
The passage observes that a person may become deeply attached to something and, when unable to possess it, fall into such grief and sorrow that memory and reason are affected.
Historical advice included moderation in food and drink, bloodletting, inducing vomiting, sweating, physical work and intense prayer.
The person was also advised to renounce voluntarily the thing they desired so strongly and to carry camphor with them.
Medicinal bugloss was considered particularly useful for those whose minds had become disturbed through excessive longing.
The plant was historically taken in preparations, eaten chopped or applied to the head.
Lemon-balm water was likewise recommended both internally and externally.
Against sorrow and heavy thoughts
The historical text recommends purging, bloodletting and drinking good old wine, which was believed to gladden a sorrowful mind.
Remedies intended to “cleanse the blood” are also mentioned.
Rose, rosemary and medicinal bugloss were believed to bring comfort to the mind.
And if none of these helped, the passage concludes that a person should turn their thoughts towards God and seek joy there.
From the page of a book to the space of Pharmacia
Zelinkár was created in 1793 with a fundamentally practical ambition: to bring knowledge closer to ordinary people.
Today, we no longer read its remedies as medical instructions. We read them as documents of their time — records of the ways in which our predecessors thought about nature, the human body, health, illness and care.
Just as important, however, is the language in which these ideas were communicated. Zelinkár belongs to a period when Slovak book culture was acquiring a new form and authors such as Juraj Fándly were demonstrating that Slovak could carry not only stories and prayers, but knowledge itself.
The seven artworks at St. Martin Pharmacia bring this story back into a space where health, plants, history, language and art meet once again.
Not as a return to the medicine of the 18th century, but as a reminder of the cultural memory from which our understanding of the pharmacy and of care itself has grown.
The historical context of this article is based on bibliographical and digitised materials relating to Juraj Fándly, the Slovak Learned Society and the 1793 publication of Malí Zeľinkár.
