The Royal College of Physicians, and John Dee

Jan 17, 2016 13:00

I've discovered a fresh bit of amazing London architecture: the Royal College of Physicians building next to Regent's Park.


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london, museums, architecture, exhibitions

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don_fitch January 17 2016, 23:32:55 UTC
I do not not (much) like Dr. Dee, but the display sounds interesting, as he was.

Would the grounds include the Chelsea Physics Garden? It might be worth a look around, though probably few (if any) of the plants date directly back to 1673 (which is Ancient by U. S. standards). When I worked for the Los Angeles County Arboretum, we occasionally requested seeds from their List (Arboreta routinely freely exchange seeds, as we did gleefully with Russian ones during The Cold War, despite having to go through some third country). That Physics Garden -- probab;y the first formal collection of medicinal plants in the Western word -- flattered me by its trust, in that they usually sent me only one seed (Ingroup reference: if you plant one of anything it will fail, but if you plant a lot they'll all thrive). The Royal Horticultural Society generally sent precisely 100 seeds, all of which usually germinated. (LASCA seem to have destroyed their pre-digital records, so my meticulously-kept percentage-of-germination records no longer exist) but I don't think I ever got anything from the Physics Garden to germinate or survive.

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major_clanger January 18 2016, 08:20:33 UTC
The Chelsea Physic Garden is several miles away and was founded as part of the Society of Apothecaries although it's now run separately.

The RCP and SoA had a legal battle some 300 years ago (see the mention of the 'Rose Case' here) about the regulation of who could practise medicine, but they seem to have got on well for the last couple of centuries.

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