Automated Topic Analysis of the Voynich Manuscript

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Nicholas Culpeper (18 October 1616 – 10 January 1654) was an English botanist, herbalist, physician and astrologer.
His book "The English Physitian,1652",  ( later  "Complete Herbal, 1653" ) is a source of pharmaceutical and herbal lore of the time.

Here is You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., that should be better suited to statistical analysis than the raw Project Gutemberg text.

Hello Jorge and Rob,

thank you for introducing me to the Culpeper "The English Physitian" (also named "Complete Herbal"). I run the same experiments as I did with the Voynich MS. That's running LDA, BERTopic and NMF models on the text of Culpeper's book. I cleaned first the data and labelled according to the section, then run the topic models. Each dot is a text section. I cannot label it by the page, as I haven't it in the txt file. 

Here is a summary of the topics found by each model, its distribution and the most important words per topic:

LDA:


You can see the word clouds for each topic (where a word is bigger if it has more importance in the topic):


Here is a summary of what the most important words of each topic tell us about it:

Topic 0 — General theory, method, and practice
Key words: herbs, reason, tree, way, shall, make, keep, time

• This reads like preface / general instructions: reasoning about herbs, general use, “ways” of preparation, timing, keeping herbs.
  
• These could be Prologue or introductory notes about how and why to use herbs.
  

Topic 1 — Virtues / medicinal uses
Key words: good, herb, helpeth, water, juyce, pains, wine, decoction, ulcers, applied

• This is remedies: describes health benefits (helpeth, good for pains) and preparations (water, wine, decoction, applied).
  
• It should be the “Virtues” section where the medicinal value of each herb is explained.
  

Topic 2 — Habitat / growing conditions
Key words: places, groweth, land, gardens, fields, wild, sides

• This is the “Place” section: where the plant is found or grown (wild, fields, gardens, land).
  
• It also includes words like known, description, well which might introduce local familiarity (“well known in every garden”).
  

Topic 3 — Morphological description
Key words: leavs, smal, seed, long, green, flowers, root, colour, stalks, white

• This is a description of the plant’s physical characteristics: leaves, seeds, flowers, roots, color.
  
• Matches the “Description” section of each entry.
  

BERTopic:


The word clouds are:


Summary of the topics:

Topic 0 — Virtues / medicinal uses
Key words: good, herb, helpeth, water, juyce, pains, wine, decoction

• This is the “Virtues” section: medicinal benefits of the plant, how it helps ailments, and how it’s prepared (water, wine, decoction, juyce).
  
• Almost identical to what we saw for NMF Topic 1 earlier.
  

Topic 2 — Morphological description
Key words: smal, leavs, long, flowers, colour, green, round

• This is the “Description” section: form, size, and color of leaves, flowers, roots, and other parts.
  
• A direct match to the physical description part of each herb entry.
  

Topic 1 — Habitat / place
Key words: groweth, places, land, gardens, fields, woods

• This is the “Place” section: where the herb grows (gardens, fields, wild places, woods).
  
• Tells you where to find or cultivate the plant.
  

Topics 3, 4, 5, 7 — Time / flowering and harvest

• Topic 3: flower, july, ripe, seed, august, june — summer flowering/fruiting
  
• Topic 4: flowreth, ripe, july, seed, june, august — flowering + seed production
  
• Topic 5: flowreth, july, june, august, beginning, months — start and duration of flowering
  
• Topic 7: seedeth, flowreth, august, july, june — seed maturation
  

These are all variants of the “Time” section: when the plant flowers, sets seed, and should be collected. The repetition in multiple topics likely reflects slightly different styles/formulas used for different herbs.

Topic 6 — General introductory remarks
Key words: description, known, well, need, write, trouble, sith

• These are introductory phrases like “This herb is well known, its description is as follows…” or general commentary.
  
• This fits the opening lines of an entry before moving to the detailed description.
  

NMF:


The word clouds are:


The topic descriptions are:

NMF Topic 0 — Morphological description
Key words: smal, leavs, long, flowers, root, colour, white, branches

• This is clearly the Description section (appearance of the plant).
  
• It talks about physical attributes: size, leaf shape, flower color, roots.
  
• Voynich parallel: The text that would accompany the plant drawings.
  

NMF Topics 1 & 5 — Flowering and seasonal timing

• Topic 1: july, flowreth, june, august, ripe, seed — flowering/fruiting schedule, mainly summer months.
  
• Topic 5: flower, summer, seed, ripe, end, august, may, april, winter — seasonal cycle with a broader time span (spring → summer → harvest).
  

These are Time sections, telling when the plant flowers, fruits, seeds, and can be collected.

NMF Topic 3 — Habitat / place
Key words: groweth, places, land, gardens, fields, woods, moist, meadows, hedg, wild

• This is the Place section.
  
• Lists locations where the plant grows (gardens, wild places, meadows, hedgerows, waste ground).
  

NMF Topic 2 — Virtues / medicinal uses
Key words: also, herb, good, helpeth, ulcers, wounds, water, decoction, pains, wine

• This is the Virtues section.
  
• Discusses medicinal benefits (help for ulcers, wounds, pains) and preparation methods (wine, decoction, boyled, drunk).
  

NMF Topic 4 — Introductory / general remarks
Key words: description, known, well, need, garden, vertues, followeth, every

• This looks like introductory sentences that precede the Description section.
  
• Phrases like “This herb is well known… the description followeth…”
  
• It’s almost the template line that starts many herb entries.