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

No chemical analysis of them, or of the nuts, has been made, but they are found to contain tannin freely. Rich-coloured, of a reddish brown, and glossy, these nuts have given their name to a certain shade of mellow dark auburn hair. Rosalind, in As You Like It, says "Orlando's locks are of a good colour: I' faith your Chestnut was ever the only colour."

Of the Horse Chestnut tincture, two or three drops, with a spoonful of water, taken before meals and at bedtime, will cure almost any simple case of piles in a week. Also, carrying a Horse Chestnut about the person, is said to obviate giddiness, and to prevent piles.

Taken altogether, the Horse Chestnut, for its splendour of blossom, and wealth of umbrageous leaf, [104] its polished mahogany fruit, and its special medicinal virtues, is facile princeps the belle of our English trees. But, like many a ball-room beauty, when the time comes for putting aside the gay leafy attire, it is sadly untidy, and makes a great litter of its cast-off clothing.

It has been ingeniously suggested that the cicatrix of the leaf resembles a horse-shoe, with all its nails evenly placed.

The Sweet Spanish Chestnut tree is grown much less commonly in this country, and its fruit affords only material for food, without possessing medicinal properties; though, in the United States of America, an infusion of the leaves is thought to be useful for staying the paroxysms of whooping-cough. Of all known nuts, this (the Sweet Chestnut, Stover Nut, or Meat Nut) is the most farinaceous and least oily; hence it is more easy of digestion than any other. To mountaineers it is invaluable, so that on the Apennines and the Pyrenees the Chestnut harvest is the event of the year. The Italian Chestnut-cakes, called necci, contain forty per cent. of nutritious matter soluble in cold water; and Chestnut flour, when properly prepared, is a capital food for children.

To be harvested the Chestnuts are spread on a frame of lattice-work overhead, and a fire is kept burning underneath. When dry the fruit is boiled, or steamed, or roasted, or ground into a kind of flour, with which puddings are made, or an excellent kind of bread is produced. The ripe Chestnut possesses a fine creamy flavour, and when roasted it becomes almost aromatic. A good way to cook Chestnuts is to boil them for twenty minutes, and then place them for five minutes more in a Dutch oven.

It was about the fruit of the Spanish tree Shakespeare [105] said: "A woman's tongue gives not half so great a blow to the ear as will a Chestnut in a farmer's fire." In the United States of America an old time-worn story, or oft repeated tale, is called in banter a "Chestnut," and a stale joker is told "not to rattle the Chestnuts."

For convalescents, after a long serious illness, the French make a chocolate of sweet Chestnuts, which is highly restorative. The nuts are first cooked in eau de vie until their shells and the pellicle of the kernels can be peeled off; then they are beaten into a pulp together with sufficient milk and sugar, with some cinnamon added. The mixture is afterwards boiled with more milk, and frothed up in a chocolate pot.

CHICKWEED.

Chickweed—called Alsine or Stellaria media, a floral star of middle magnitude—belongs to the Clove-pink order of plants, and, despite the most severe weather, grows with us all the year round, in waste places by the roadsides, and as a garden weed. It is easily known by its fresh-looking, juicy, verdant little leaves, and by its tiny white star-like flowers; also by a line of small stiff hairs, which runs up one side of the stalk like a vegetable hog-mane, and when it reaches a pair of leaves immediately shifts its position, and runs up higher on the opposite side.

The fact of our finding Chickweed (and Groundsel) in England, as well as on the mainland of Europe, affords a proof that Britain, when repeopled after the great Ice age, must have been united somewhere to the continent; and its having lasted from earliest times throughout Europe, North America, and Siberia, seems to show that this modest plant must be possessed of some universal utility which has enabled it to hold its own [106] until now in the great evolutionary struggle. It grows wild allover the earth, and serves as food for small birds, such as finches, linnets, and other feathered songsters of the woods. Moreover, we read in the old herbal of Turner: Qui alunt aviculas caveis inclusas hoc solent illas si quando cibos fastigiant recreare—or, as Gerard translates this: "Little birds in cages are refreshed with Chickweed when they loath their meat."

The Chickweed is termed Alsine—quia lucos, vel alsous amat— because it loves to grow in shady places This small herb abounds with the earthy salts of potash, which are admirable against scurvy when thus found in nature's laboratory, and a continued deprivation from which always proves disastrous to mankind. "The water of Chickweed," says an old writer, "is given to children for their fits, and its juice is used for their gripes." When boiled, the plant may be eaten instead of Spinach. Its fresh juice if rubbed on warts, first pared to the quick, will presently cause them to fall off.

Fresh Chickweed juice, as proved medicinally in 1893, produced sharp rheumatic pains and stitches in the head and eyes, with a general feeling of being bruised; also pressure about the liver and soreness there, with sensations of burning, and of bilious indigestion. Subsequently, the herb, when given in quite small doses of tincture, or fresh juice, or infusion, has been found by its affinity to remove the train of symptoms just described, and to act most reliably in curing obstinate rheumatism allied therewith. Furthermore, a poultice prepared from the fresh green juicy leaves, is emollient and cooling, whilst an ointment made from them with hog's lard, is manifestly healing.

When rain is impending, the flowers remain closed; [107] and the plant teaches an exemplary matrimonial lesson, seeing that at night its leaves approach one another in loving pairs, and sleep with the tender buds protected between them. Culpeper says: "Chickweed is a fine, soft, pleasing herb, under the dominion of the moon, and good for many things." Parkinson orders thus: "To make a salve fit to heal sore legs, boil a handful of Chickweed with a handful of red rose leaves in a pint of the oil of trotters or sheep's feet, and anoint the grieved places therewith against a fire each evening and morning; then bind some of the herb, if ye will, to the sore, and so shall ye find help, if God will."

CHRISTMAS ROSE—BLACK HELLEBORE.

This well-known plant, a native of Southern Europe, and belonging to the Ranunculus order, is grown commonly in our gardens for the sake of its showy white flowers, conspicuous in winter, from December to February. The root has been famous since time immemorial as a remedy for insanity. From its abundant growth in the Grecian island of Anticyra arose the proverb: Naviget Anticyram—"Take a voyage to Anticyra," as applied by way of advice to a man who has lost his reason.

When fresh the root is very acrid, and will blister the skin. If dried and given as powder it will cause vomiting and purging, also provoking sneezing when smelt, and inducing the monthly flow of a woman. This root contains a chemical glucoside—"helleborin," which, if given in full doses, stimulates the kidneys to such an excess that their function becomes temporarily paralyzed. It therefore happens that a medicinal tincture (H.) made from the fresh root collected at Christmas, just before the plant would flower, when [108] taken in small doses, will promptly relieve dropsy, especially a sudden dropsical swelling of the skin, with passive venous congestion of the kidneys, as in scrofulous children.

A former method of administering the root was by sticking a particularly sweet apple full of its fibres, and roasting this under hot embers; then the fibres were withdrawn, and the apple was eaten by the patient.

Taken by mischance in any quantity the root is highly poisonous: one ounce of a watery decoction has caused death in eight hours, with vomiting, giddiness, insensibility, and palsy. Passive dropsy in children after scarlet fever may be effectually cured by small doses of the tincture, third decimal strength.

The name Hellebore, as applied to the plant, comes from the Greek Elein—to injure, and Bora—fodder. It is also known as Melampodium, being thus designated because Melampus, a physician in the Peloponnesus (B.C. 1530) watched the effect on his goats when they had eaten the leaves, and cured therewith the insane daughters of Proetus, King of Argos.

It was famous among the Egyptian and Greek doctors of old as the most effectual remedy for the diseases of mania, epilepsy, apoplexy, dropsy, and gout. The tincture is very useful in mental stupor, with functional impairment of the hearing and sight; likewise for strumous water on the brain.

The original reputation of this herb was acquired because of its purgative properties, which enabled it to carry off black bile which was causing insanity.

No tannin is contained in the root. A few drops of the juice obtained therefrom, if dropped warm into the ear each night and morning, will cure singing and noises in the ears. A proper dose of the powdered root [109] is from five to ten grains. Snuff made with this powder has cured night blindness, as among the French prisoners at Norman Cross in 1806. The Gauls used to rub the points of their hunting spears with Hellebore, believing the game they killed was thus rendered more tender. Hahnemann said that at least one third of the cases of insanity occurring in lunatic asylums may be cured by this and the white Hellebore (an allied plant) in such small doses as of the tincture twelfth dilution, given in the patient's drink.

A bastard Hellebore, which is foetidus, or, "stinking," and is known to rustics as Bearsfoot, because of its digitate leaves, grows frequently near houses in this country, though a doubtful native. The sepals of its flowers are purple, and the leaves are evergreen; the petals are green and leaf-like, whilst the nectaries are large and tubular, often containing small flies. The nectar is reputed to be poisonous. Again, this plant bears the names Pegroots, Oxbeel, Oxheal, and Setterwort, because used for "settering" cattle. A piece of the root is inserted as a seton (so-called from seta—a hank of silk) into the dewlap, and this is termed "pegging," or, "settering," for the benefit of diseased lungs. "The root," says Gerard, "consists of many small black strings, involved or wrapped one within another very intricately." The smell of the fresh plant is extremely fetid, and, when taken, it will purge, or provoke vomiting. The leaves are very useful for expelling worms. Dr. Woodville says their juice made into a syrup, with coarse sugar, is almost the only vermifuge he had used against round worms for three years past. "If these leaves be dried in an oven after the bread is drawne out, and the powder thereof be taken in a figge, or raisin, or strewed upon a piece of [110] bread spread with honey, and eaten, it killeth worms in children exceedingly." A decoction made with one drachm of the green leaves, or about fifteen grains of the dried leaves in powder, is the usual dose for a child between four and six years of age; but a larger dose will provoke sickness, or diarrhoea. The medicine should be repeated on two or three consecutive mornings; and it will be found that the second dose acts more powerfully than the first, "never failing to expel round worms by stool, if there be any lodged in the alimentary tube."

CLOVER.

In this country we possess about twenty species of the trefoil, or Clover, which is a plant so well known in its general features by its abundance in every field and on every grass plot, as not to need any detailed description. The special variety endowed with medicinal and curative virtues, is the Meadow Clover (Trifolium pratense), or red clover, called by some, Cocksheads, and familiar to children as Suckles, or Honey-suckles, because of the abundant nectar in the long tubes of its corollae. Other names for it are Bee-bread, and Smere. An extract of this red clover is now confidently said to have the power of healing scrofulous sores, and of curing cancer. The New York Tribune of September, 1884, related a case of indisputable cancer of the breast of six years' standing, with an open fetid sore, which had penetrated the chest-wall between the ribs, and which was radically healed by a prolonged internal use of the extract of red clover. Four years afterwards, in September, 1888, "the breast was found to be restored to its normal condition, all