Most families in Europe during the Middle Ages grew medicinal herbs at home. Families passed down cures and practices from generation to generation. By the seventeenth century, ้herbalism had spread throughout Western Europe. In 1649,The English doctor Nicholas Culpeper wrote A Physical Directory. This was one of the first book to offer medical advice for common people. The first director of herbal medicine was available in the United States in 1820. The book included a long list of herbal drugs and described their uses.