The present book is an attempt to explain the rational basis of Anglo-Saxon medicine in the light of modern physiology and pharmacology. I should explain at the outset why I have undertaken this approach, and I think I should offer some explanation of my educational background. My formal education and training have been in biology, especially in limnology (the dynamics of the evolution of fresh-water lakes) and in invertebrate physiology. I have never had a lesson in Old English or in the history of Anglo-Saxon England; all I know about these subjects I have acquired through my interest in medieval medicine. I should perhaps add that I spent my childhood on a farm where the children were expected to be able to identify all the animals and plants around them. We lived with a grandmother whose memory went back to the way of life of Scottish Highland crofters transplanted to the New World. It was a way of life, I have come to realize, not very different from that of the Anglo-Saxons.

As a consequence, I entered on the study of Anglo-Saxon medicine, being deficient in much of importance in Anglo-Saxon language, literature and history, but at the same time having a background rich in ancient folk-customs and mores experienced at first hand, and an understanding of the scientific bases of disease, therapeutics and pharmacology. Because I think that this background has given me a peculiar outlook on the subject of Anglo-Saxon medicine, I have dared to write this book.