Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure, William Thomas Fernie [latest books to read .TXT] 📗

Figwort—which is botanically called nodosa, or knotted—is considered, when an ointment is made with it, using the whole plant bruised and treated with unsalted lard, a sovereign remedy against "burnt holes" or gangrenous chicken-pox, such as often attacks the Irish peasantry, who subsist on a meagre and exclusively vegetable diet, being half starved, and pent up in wretched foul hovels. This herb is said to be certainly curative of hydrophobia, by taking every morning whilst fasting a slice of bread and butter on which the powdered knots of the roots have been spread, following it up with two tumblers of fresh spring water. Then let the patient be well clad in woollen garments and made to take a long fast walk until in a profuse perspiration. The treatment should be continued for nine days. Again, the botanical name of a fig, ficus, has been commonly applied to a sore or scab appearing on a part of the body where hair is, or to a red sore in the fundament, i.e., to a pile. And the Figwort is so named in allusion to its curative virtues against piles, when the plant is made into an ointment for outward use, and when the tincture is taken internally. It is specially visited by wasps.

BILBERRY (Whortleberry, or Whinberry).

This fruit, which belongs to the Cranberry order of plants, grows abundantly throughout England in heathy [52] and mountainous districts. The small-branched shrub bears globular, wax-like flowers, and black berries, which are covered, when quite fresh, with a grey bloom. In the West of England they are popularly called "whorts," and they ripen about the time of St. James' Feast, July 25th. Other names for the fruit are Blueberry, Bulberry, Hurtleberry, and Huckleberry. The title Whinberry has been acquired from its growing on Whins, or Heaths; and Bilberry signifies dark coloured; whence likewise comes Blackwort as distinguished in its aspect from the Cowberry and the Cranberry. By a corruption the original word Myrtleberry has suffered change of its initial M into W. (Whortlebery.) In the middle ages the Myrtleberry was used in medicine and cookery, to which berry the Whortleberry bears a strong resemblance. It is agreeable to the taste, and may be made into tarts, but proves mawkish unless mixed with some more acid fruit.

The Bilberry (Vaccinium Myrtillus) is an admirable astringent, and should be included as such among the domestic medicines of the housewife. If some good brandy be poured over two handfuls of the fruit in a bottle, this will make an extract which continually improves by being kept. Obstinate diarrhoea may be cured by giving doses of a tablespoonful of this extract taken with a wineglassful of warm water, and repeated at intervals of two hours whilst needed, even for the more severe cases of dysenteric diarrhoea. The berries contain chemically much tannin. Their stain on the lips may be quickly effaced by sucking at a lemon. In Devonshire they are eaten at table with cream. The Irish call them "frawns." If the first tender leaves are properly gathered and dried, they can scarcely be [53] distinguished from good tea. Moor game live on these berries in the autumn. Their juice will stain paper or linen purple:—

    "Sanguineo splendore rosas vaccinia nigro,
    Induit, et dulci violas ferrugine pingit."
            CLAUDIAN.

They are also called in some counties, Blaeberries, Truckleberries, and Blackhearts.

The extract of Bilberry is found to be a very useful application for curing such skin diseases as scaly eczema, and other eczema which is not moist or pustulous; also for burns and scalds. Some of the extract is to be laid thickly on the cleansed skin with a camel hairbrush, and a thin layer of cotton wool to be spread over it, the whole being fastened with a calico or gauze bandage. This should be changed gently once a day.

Another Vaccinium (oxycoccos), the Marsh Whortleberry, or Cranberry, or Fenberry—from growing in fens—is found in peat bogs, chiefly in the North. This is a low plant with straggling wiry stems, and solitary terminal bright red flowers, of which the segments are bent back in a singular manner. Its fruit likewise makes excellent tarts, and forms a considerable article of commerce at Langtown, on the borders of Cumberland. The fruit stalks are crooked at the top, and before the blossom expands they resemble the head and neck of a crane.

BLACKBERRY.

This is the well-known fruit of the Common Bramble (Rubus fructicosus), which grows in every English hedgerow, and which belongs to the Rose order of plants. It has long been esteemed for its bark and leaves as a [54] capital astringent, these containing much tannin; also for its fruit, which is supplied with malic and citric acids, pectin, and albumen. Blackberries go often by the name of "bumblekites," from "bumble," the cry of the bittern, and kyte, a Scotch word for belly; the name bumblekite being applied, says Dr. Prior, "from the rumbling and bumbling caused in the bellies of children who eat the fruit too greedily." "Rubus" is from the Latin ruber, red.

The blackberry has likewise acquired the name of scaldberry, from producing, as some say, the eruption known as scaldhead in children who eat the fruit to excess; or, as others suppose, from the curative effects of the leaves and berries in this malady of the scalp; or, again, from the remedial effects of the leaves when applied externally to scalds.

It has been said that the young shoots, eaten as a salad, will fasten loose teeth. If the leaves are gathered in the Spring and dried, then, when required, a handful of them may be infused in a pint of boiling water, and the infusion, when cool, may be taken, a teacupful at a time, to stay diarrhoea, and for some bleedings. Similarly, if an ounce of the bruised root is boiled in three half-pints of water, down to a pint, a teacupful of this may be given every three or four hours. The decoction is also useful against whooping-cough in its spasmodic stage. The bark contains tannin; and if an ounce of the same be boiled in a pint and a half of water, or of milk, down to a pint, half a teacupful of the decoction may be given every hour or two for staying relaxed bowels. Likewise the fruit, if desiccated in a moderately hot oven, and afterwards reduced to powder (which should be kept ill a well corked bottle) will prove an efficacious remedy for dysentery.

[55] Gerard says: "Bramble leaves heal the eyes that hang out, and stay the haemorrhoides [piles] if they can be laid thereunto." The London Pharmacopoeia (1696) declared the ripe berries of the bramble to be a great cordial, and to contain a notable restorative spirit. In Cruso's Treasury of Easy Medicines (1771), it is directed for old inveterate ulcers: "Take a decoction of blackberry leaves made in wine, and foment the ulcers with this whilst hot each night and morning, which will heal them, however difficult to be cured." The name of the bush is derived from brambel, or brymbyll, signifying prickly; its blossom as well as the fruit, ripe and unripe, in all stages, may be seen on the bush at the same time. With the ancient Greeks Blackberries were a popular remedy for gout.

As soon as blackberries are over-ripe, they become quite indigestible. Country folk say in Somersetshire and Sussex: "The devil goes round on Old Michaelmas Day, October 11th, to spite the Saint, and spits on the blackberries, so that they who eat them after that date fall sick, or have trouble before the year is out." Blackberry wine and blackberry jam are taken for sore throats in many rustic homes. Blackberry jelly is useful for dropsy from feeble ineffective circulation. To make "blackberry cordial," the juice should be expressed from the fresh ripe fruit, adding half a pound of white sugar to each quart thereof, together with half an ounce of both nutmeg and cloves; then boil these together for a short time, and add a little brandy to the mixture when cold.

In Devonshire the peasantry still think that if anyone is troubled with "blackheads," i.e., small pimples, or boils, he may be cured by creeping from East to West on the hands and knees nine times beneath an arched [56] bramble bush. This is evidently a relic of an old Dryad superstition when the angry deities who inhabited particular trees had to be appeased before the special diseases which they inflicted could be cured. It is worthy of remark that the Bramble forms the subject of the oldest known apologue. When Jonathan upbraided the men of Shechem for their base ingratitude to his father's house, he related to them the parable of the trees choosing a king, by whom the Bramble was finally elected, after the olive, the fig tree, and the vine had excused themselves from accepting this dignity.

In the Roxburghe Ballad of "The Children in the Wood," occurs the verse—

    "Their pretty lips with Blackberries
        Were all besmeared and dyed;
    And when they saw the darksome night
        They sat them down, and cryed."

The French name for blackberries is mûres sauvages, also mûres de haie; and in some of our provincial districts they are known as "winterpicks," growing on the Blag.

Blackberry wine, which is a trustworthy cordial astringent remedy for looseness of the bowels, may be made thus: Measure your berries, and bruise them, and to every gallon of the fruit add a quart of boiling water. Let the mixture stand for twenty-four hours, occasionally stirring; then strain off the liquid, adding to every gallon a couple of pounds of refined sugar, and keep it in a cask tightly corked till the following October, when it will be ripe and rich.

A noted hair-dye is said to be made by boiling the leaves of the bramble in strong lye, which then imparts permanently to the hair a soft, black colour. Tom Hood, in his humorous way, described a negro funeral [57] as "going a black burying." An American poet graphically tell us:—

            "Earth's full of Heaven,
    And every common bush afire with God!
    But only they who see take off their shoes;
    The rest sit round it, and—pluck blackberries."

BLUEBELL (Wild Hyacinth).

This,—the Agraphis mutans,—of the Lily tribe—is so abundant in English woods and pastures, whilst so widely known, and popular with young and old, as to need no description. Hyacinth petals are marked in general with dark spots, resembling in their arrangement the Greek word AI, alas! because a youth, beloved by Apollo, and killed by an ill-wind, was changed into this flower. But the wild Hyacinth bears no such character on its petals, and is therefore called "non-scriptus." The graceful curl of the petals, not their dark violet colour, has suggested to the poets "hyacinthine locks."

In Walton's Angler the Bluebell is mentioned as Culverkeys, the same as "Calverkeys" in Wiltshire. No particular medicinal uses have attached themselves to the wild Hyacinth flower as a herbal simple. The root is round, and was formerly prized for its abundant clammy juice given out when bruised, and employed as starch. Miss Pratt refers to this as poisonous; and our Poet Laureate teaches:—

    "In the month when earth and sky are one,
    To squeeze the blue bell 'gainst the adder's bite."

When dried and powdered, the root as a styptic is of special virtue to cure the whites of women: in doses of not more than three grains at a time. "There is [58] hardly," says Sir John Hill, "a more powerful remedy." Tennyson has termed the woodland abundance of Hyacinths in full spring time as "The heavens upbreaking through the earth." On the day of St. George, the Patron Saint of England, these wild hyacinths tinge the meadows and pastures with their deep blue colour—an emblem of the ocean empire, over which England assumes the rule.

But the chief charms of the Bluebell are its beauty and early appearance. Now is "the winter past; the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time for the singing of birds is come; and the voice of the turtle is heard in the land."

    "This earth is one great temple, made
        For worship everywhere;
    The bells are flowers in sun and shade
        Which ring the heart to prayer."

    "The city bell takes seven days
        To reach the townsman's ear;
    But he who kneels in Nature's ways.
        Has Sabbath all the year."

The Hairbell (Campanula rotundifolia) is the Bluebell of Scotland; and nothing rouses a Scot to anger more surely than to exhibit the wild Hyacinth as the true Bluebell.

BOG BEAN (or Marsh-trefoil).

The Buck-bean, or Bog-bean, which is common enough in stagnant pools, and on our spongy bogs, is the most serviceable of all known herbal tonics. It may be easily recognised growing in water by its large leaves overtopping the surface, each being composed of three leaflets, and resembling the leaf of a Windsor Broad Bean. The flowers when in bud