Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure Part 31

They will also prevent or relieve sea-sickness.

When Tom Hood lay a dying he turned his eyes feebly towards the window on hearing it rattle in the night, whereupon his wife, who was watching him, said softly. "It's only the wind, dear"; to which he replied, with a sense of humour indomitable to the last, "Then put a Peppermint lozenge on the sill."

Two sorts of this herb are cultivated for the market--black and white Peppermint, the first of which furnishes the most, but not the best oil. The former has purple stems, and the latter green. As an antiseptic, and destroyer of disease germs, this oil is signally efficacious, [341] on which important account it is now used for inhalation by consumptive patients as a volatile vapour to reach remote diseased parts of the lung pa.s.sages, and to heal by destroying the morbid germs which are keeping up mischief therein.

Towards proving this preservative power exercised by the oil of Peppermint, pieces of meat, and of fat, wrapped in several layers of gauze medicated with the oil have been kept for seven months sweet, and free from putrescent changes. A simple respirator for inhaling the oil is made from a piece of thin perforated zinc plate adapted to the shape of the mouth and nostrils like a small open funnel, within the narrow end of which is fitted a pledget of cotton wool saturated with twenty drops of the oil, or from twenty to thirty drops of the spirituous essence. This should be renewed each night and morning, whilst the apparatus is to be worn nearly all day. At the same time the oil is agreeable of odour, and is altogether harmless. It may be serviceably admixed with liniments for use to rheumatic parts.

"Peppermint," says Dr. Hughes (Brighton), "should be more largely employed than it is in coughs, especially in a dry cough, however caused, when it seems to act specifically as a cure, just as arnica does for injuries, or aconite for febrile inflammation. It will relieve even the irritative hectic cough of consumptive patients. Eight or ten drops of the essence should be given for this purpose as a dose with a tablespoonful of water. In France continuous inhalations of Peppermint oil combined with creasote and glycerine, have become used most successfully, even when cavities exist in the lungs, with copious bacillary expectoration. The cough, the night sweats, and the heavy phlegm have been arrested, whilst the nutrition and the weight have steadily increased."

[342] A solution of menthol one grain, spirit of wine fifty drops, and oil of cloves ten drops, if painted over the seat of pain, will relieve neuralgia of the face, or sciatica promptly. Unhealthy sores may be cleansed, and their healing promoted, by being dressed with strips of soft rag dipped in sweet oil, to each ounce of which one or two drops of the oil of Peppermint has been added. For diphtheria, Peppermint oil has been of marked use when applied freely twice or three times in the day to the ulcerated parts of the throat. This oil, or the essence, can be used of any strength, in any quant.i.ty, without the least harm to the patient. It checks suppuration when applied to a sore or wound, whilst exercising an independent antiseptic influence. "Altogether," says Dr. Braddon, "the oil of Peppermint forms the best, safest, and most agreeable of known antiseptics."

Pliny tells that the Greeks and Romans crowned themselves with the Peppermint at their feasts, and adorned their _al fresco_ tables with its sprays. The "chefs" introduced this herb into all their sauces, and scented their wines with its essence. The Roman housewives made a paste of the Peppermint with honey, which they esteemed highly, partaking of it to sweeten their breath, and to conceal their pa.s.sion for wine at a time when the law punished with death every woman convicted of quaffing the ruby seductive liquor. Seneca perished in a bath scented with woolly mint.

The Spearmint (_Mentha viridis_) is found growing apparently wild in England, but is probably not an indigenous herb. It occurs in watery places, and on the banks of rivers, such as the Thames, and the Exe. If used externally, its strong decoction will heal chaps and indolent eruptions.

It possesses a warm, aromatic odour and taste, much [343]

resembling those of Peppermint, but not so pungent. Its volatile oil, and its essence, made with spirit of wine, contain a similar stimulating principle, but are less intense, and therefore better adapted for children's maladies.

The Spearmint is called "Mackerel Mint," and in Germany "Lady's Mint," with a pun on the word munze. Its name, Spear, or Spire, indicates the spiry form of its floral blossoming. When the leaves of the herb are macerated in milk, this curdles much less quickly than it otherwise would; and therefore the essence is to be commended for use with milk diets by delicate persons, or for young children of feeble digestive powers, though not when feverishness is present.

"Spearmint," says John Evelyn, "is friendly to the weak stomach, and powerful against all nervous crudities." "This is the Spearmint that steadies giddiness," writes Alfred Austin, Poet Laureate.

Our cooks employ it with vinegar for making the mint sauce which we eat with roast lamb, because of its condimentary virtues as a spice to the immature meat, whilst the acetic acid of the vinegar serves to help dissolve the crude alb.u.minous fibre.

The oil is less used than that of Peppermint. From two to five drops may be given on sugar; or from half to one teaspoonful of the spirit of Spearmint with two tablespoonfuls of water. Also a distilled water of Spearmint is made, which will relieve hiccough, and flatulence, as well as the giddiness of indigestion. The tincture prepared from the dried herb looks of a bright dark green by day, but of a deep red colour by night. Martial called the Spearmint _Rutctatrix mentha_. "_Nec deest ructatrix mentha_."

The Calamint, or Basil Thyme, grows frequently in [344] our waysides and hedges, a l.a.b.i.ate plant, with downy stems and leaves, whilst bearing light purple flowers. The whole herb has a sweet, aromatic odour, and makes a pleasant cordial tea. It is named from the Greek kalos, "excellent," because thought useful against serpents; "There is made hereof," said Galen, "An antidote marvellous good for young women that want their courses."

The stem of this pretty slender herb is seldom more than five or six inches high, and its blossoms are so inconspicuous as to be often overlooked. The flowers droop gracefully before expansion. In country places it is often called Mill Mountain, and its infusion is an old remedy for rheumatism. If bruised, and applied externally, it reddens the skin, and will sometimes even blister it. In this way it acts well when judiciously used for lumbago, and rheumatic pains.

The Calamint contains a camphoraceous, volatile, stimulating oil, in common with the other mints; this is distilled by water, but its virtues are better extracted by rectified spirit. The lesser Calamint is a variety of the herb possessing almost superior virtues, with a stronger odour resembling that of Pennyroyal. "Apple Mint" is the "_Mentha rotundifolia_."

"Many robust men and women among our peasantry," says Dr.

George Moore, "from notions of their own, use infusions of Balm, Sage, or even a little Rue, or wild Thyme, as a common drink, with satisfaction to their stomachs, and advantage to their health, instead of infusing the Chinese herb." The Calamint is a favourite herb with such persons. About the Cat mint there is an old saying, "If you set it the cats will eat it: if you sow it the cats won't know it." This, the _Nepeta cataria_, or _herbe aux chats_, is as much beloved by cats as _Valerian_, [345] and the common _Marum_, for which herbs they have a frenzied pa.s.sion. They roll themselves over the plants, which they lick, tear with their teeth, and bathe with their urine. But the Cat mint is the detestation of rats, insomuch that with its leaves a small barricade may be constructed which the vermin will never pa.s.s however hungry they may be. It is sometimes called "Nep," as contracted from _Nepeta_. Hoffman said, "The root of the Cat mint, if chewed, will make the most gentle person fierce and quarrelsome"; and there is a legend of a certain hangman who could never find courage to exercise his gruesome task until he had masticated some of this aromatic root.

MISTLETOE.

The Mistletoe, which we all a.s.sociate so happily with the festivities of Christmas, is an evergreen parasite, growing on the branches of deciduous trees, and penetrating with simple roots through the bark into the wood. It belongs to the _Loranthaceoe_, and has the botanical name of _Visc.u.m_, or "sticky," because of its glutinous juices. The Mistletoe contains mucilage, sugar, a fixed oil, resin, an odorous principle, some tannin, and various salts. Its most interesting const.i.tuent is the "viscin," or bird glue, which is mainly developed by fermentation, and becomes a yellowish, sticky, resinous ma.s.s, such as can be used with success as a bird-lime.

The dried young twigs, and the leaves, are chiefly the medicinal parts, though young children have been attacked with convulsions after eating freely of the berries.

The name (in Anglo-Saxon, _Mistiltan_) is derived, says Dr. Prior, from _mistil_, "different," and _tan_, "a twig," [346] because so unlike the tree it grows upon; or, perhaps, _mist_ may refer to excrement, and the adjective, _visc.u.m_, bear some collateral reference to viscera, "entrails." Probably our _visc.u.m_ plant differs from that of the Latin writers in their accounts of the Druids, which would be the _Loranthus_ growing on the _Quercus p.u.b.escens_ (an oak indigenous to the south of France). They knew it by a name answering to "all-heal." It is of a larger and thicker sort than our common Mistletoe, which, however, possesses the same virtues in a lesser degree. The Germans call the plant _Vogellein_, and the French _Gui_, which is probably Celtic.

The plant is given powdered, or as an infusion, or made into a tincture (H.) with spirit of wine. From ten to sixty grains of the powder may be taken for a dose, or a decoction may be made by boiling two ounces of the bruised plant with half-a-pint of water, and giving one tablespoonful for a dose several times in the day; or from five to ten drops of the tincture (which is prepared almost exclusively by the h.o.m.oeopathic chemists) are a dose, with one or two tablespoonfuls of cold water.

Sir John Colebatch published in 1720 a pamphlet, on _The Treatment of Epilepsy by Mistletoe_, regarding it, and with much justice, as a specific. He procured the parasite from the lime trees at Hampton Court. The powdered leaves were ordered to be given (in black cherry water), as much of these as will lie on a sixpence every morning.

Sir John says, "This beautiful plant must have been designed by the Almighty for further and more n.o.ble purposes than barely to feed thrushes, or to be hung up superst.i.tiously in houses to drive away evil spirits." His treatise was ent.i.tled, _A Dissertation concerning the Misseltoe--A most wonderful Specifick Remedy for the Cure of Convulsive Distempers_. The physiological effect of the [347] plant is that of lessening, and temporarily benumbing such nervous action as is reflected to distant organs of the body from some central organ which is the actual seat of trouble. In this way the spasms of epilepsy and of other convulsive distempers, are allayed. Large doses of the plant, or of its berries, would, on the contrary, aggravate these convulsive disorders.

In a French "_Recueil de Remedes domestiques_," 1682, _Avec privilege du Roy_, we read, de l'epilepsie: "Il est certain que contre ce deplorable mal le veritable Guy de Chene (Mistletoe) est un remede excellent, curatif, preservatif, et qui soulage beaucoup dans l'accident. Il le faut secher au four apres qu'on aura tire le pain: le mettre en poudre fort subtile; pa.s.ser cette poudre par un tamis de foye, et la conserver pour le besoin. Il faut prendre les poids dun ecu d'or de cette poudre chaque matin dans vin blanc tous les trois derniers jours de la lune vieille. Il est encore bon que la personne affligee de ce mal porte toujours un morceau de Guy de Chene pendu a son col; mais ce morceau doit etre toujours frais, et sans avoir ete mis au four." The active part of the plant is its resin (_viscin_), which is yielded to spirit of wine in making a tincture.

This is prepared (H.) with proof spirit from the leaves and ripe berries of our Mistletoe in equal quant.i.ties, but it is difficult of manufacture owing to the viscidity of the sap. A special process is employed of pa.s.sing the material twice through a sausage machine, and then mixing the ma.s.s with powdered gla.s.s before its percolation with the spirit. A trituration made from the leaves, berries, and tender twigs, is given for epilepsy, in doses of twenty grains, twice or three times a day.

Nowadays the berries are taken by country people when finding themselves troubled with severe st.i.tches, [348] and they obtain almost instantaneous relief. In accordance with which experience Johnson says it was creditably reported to him, "That a few of the berries of the Misseltoe, bruised and strained into oyle and drunken, hath presently and forthwith rid a grievous and sore st.i.tch." The tincture, moreover, is put to a modern use as a heart tonic in place of the foxglove. It lessens reflex irritability, and strengthens the heart's beat, whilst raising the frequency of a slow pulse. Dr. J.

Wilde has shown that the Mistletoe possesses a high repute in rural Hamps.h.i.+re for the cure of St. Vitus's dance, and similar spasmodic nervous complaints. In the United States the leaves have been successfully employed as an infusion to check female fluxes, and haemorrhages, also to hasten childbirth by stimulating the womb when labour is protracted to the exhaustion of the mother. In Scotland the plant is almost unknown, and is restricted to one locality only.

The Druids regarded the Mistletoe as the soul of their sacred tree-- the oak; and they taught the people to believe that oaks on which it was seen growing were to be respected, because of the wonderful cures which the priests were then able to effect with it, particularly of the falling sickness. The parasite was cut from the tree with a golden sickle at a high and solemn festival, using much ceremonial display, it being then credited with a special power of "giving fertility to all animals." Ovid said, "Ad visc.u.m cantare Druidoe solebant."

Shakespeare calls it "The baleful Mistletoe," in allusion to the Scandinavian legend, that Balder, the G.o.d of peace, was slain with an arrow made of Mistletoe. He was restored to life at the request of the other G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses. The mistletoe was afterwards given to [349] be kept by the G.o.ddess of love; and it was ordained in Olympus that everyone who pa.s.sed under it should receive a kiss, to show that the branch was the emblem of love, and not of death.

Persons in Sweden afflicted with epilepsy carry with them a knife having a handle of oak mistletoe, which plant they call Thunder-besom, connecting it with lightning and fire. The thrush is the great disseminator of the parasite. He devours the berries eagerly, and soils, or "missels" his feet with their viscid seeds, conveying them thus from tree to tree, and getting thence the name of missel thrush.

In Brittany the plant is named _Herbe de la croix_, and, because the crucifix was made from its wood when a tree, it is thought to have become degraded to a parasite.

When Norwood, in Surrey, was really a forest the Mistletoe grew there on the oak, and, being held as medicinal, it was abstracted for apothecaries in London. But the men who meddled with it were said to become lame, or to fall blind with an eye, and a rash fellow who ventured to cut down the oak itself broke his leg very shortly afterwards. One teaspoonful of the dried leaves, in powder, from the appletree Mistletoe, taken in acidulated water twice a day, will cure chronic giddiness. Sculptured sprays and berries, with leaves of Mistletoe, fill the spandrils of the tomb of one of the Berkeleys in Bristol Cathedral--a very rare adornment, because for some unknown reason the parasite has been always excluded from the decorations of churches. In some districts it is called Devil's-fuge, also the Spectre's Wand, from a belief that with due incantations a branch held in the hand will compel the appearance of a spectre, and require it to speak.

[350] MOUNTAIN ASH.

A somewhat common, and handsomely conspicuous tree in many parts of England, especially about high lands, is the Rowan, or Mountain Ash. In May and June it attracts attention by its bright green feathery foliage set off by cream-coloured bloom, whilst in September it bears a brilliant fruitage of berries, richly orange in colour at first, but presently of a clear ripe vermilion. Popularly this abundant fruit is supposed to be poisonous, but such is far from being the case. A most excellent and wholesome jelly may be prepared therefrom, which is slightly tonic by its salutary bitterness, and is an admirable antiseptic accompaniment to certain roast meats, such as venison and mutton. To make this jelly, boil the berries in water (cold at first) in an enamelled preserving pan; when the fruit has become sufficiently soft, run the contents of the pan through a flannel bag without pressure; tie the bag between two chairs, with a basin below, and let the juice strain leisurely through so as to come out clear. Then to each pint of the juice add a pound of sugar, and boil this from ten to twenty minutes; pour off into warm dry jars, and cover them securely when cool. After the juice has dripped off the fruit a pleasant refres.h.i.+ng drink may be made for children by pouring a kettleful of boiling water through the flannel bag. Some persons mix with the fruit an equal quant.i.ty of green apples when making the jelly. Birds, especially field fares, eat the berries with avidity; and a botanical designation of the tree is _aucuparia_, as signifying fruit used by the _auceps_, or bird catcher, with which to bait his snares.

"There is," says an old writer, "in every berry the exhilaration of wine, and the satisfying of old mead; and whosoever shall eat three berries of them, if he has [351] completed a hundred years, he will return to the age of thirty years."

At the same time it must be noted that the _leaves_ of the Mountain Ash are of a poisonous quality, and contain prussic acid like those of the laurel. But, as already shown, the berries, when ripe, may be eaten freely without fear. Chemically they contain tartaric acid when unripe, and both malic and citric acids when ripe. They also furnish sorbin, and parasorbic acid. The unripe fruit and the bark are extremely astringent, being useful in decoction, or infusion, to check diarrhoea; and externally in poultices or lotions, to constringe such relaxed parts as the throat, and lower bowel.

The t.i.tle Rowan tree has affixed itself to the Mountain Ash, as derived from the Norse, _Runa_ (a charm), because it is supposed to have the power of averting the evil eye.

"Rowan tree and red thread Hold the witches a' in dread."

"Ruma" was really a magician, or whisperer, from _ru_, to murmur, and in olden times runes, or mystical secrets, were carved exclusively on the Mountain Ash tree in Scandinavia and the British Isles.

Crosses made of the twigs, and tied with red thread were sewn by Highlandmen into their clothes. Dame Sludge fastened a piece of the wood into Flibbertigibbet's collar as a protection against Wayland Smith's sorceries.--(Kenilworth). Other folk-names of the tree are Quicken tree, Quick Beam, Wiggen, and Witcher.

The Mountain Ash is botanically a connecting link between the dog rose of our hedges and the apple tree of our orchards. Its flowers exactly resemble apple blossoms, and its thickly-cl.u.s.tered red berries are only small crabs dwarfed by the love of the tree for mountain [352] heights and bleak windy situations. In the harsh cold regions of the north it is only a stunted shrub with leaves split up into many small leaflets, so as to suffer less by any breadth of resistance to the sharp driving blasts of icy winds.

Confusion has been often made between this tree and the Service tree (_Sorbus_, or _Pyrus domestica_), which is quite distinct, being more correctly called Servise tree, from _Cerevisia_, fermented beer. Formerly this Servise, or Checker-tree, was employed for making an intoxicating drink. Virgil says:--

"Et pocula lae Fermento atque acidis imitantur vitea _sorbis_."

"With acid juices from the Service Ash, And humming ale, they make their Lemon Squash."

The fruit of the Service tree (or Witten Pear-tree) resembles a small pear, and is considered in France very useful for dysentery because of its tannin; but this _Pyrus domestica_ is a rare tree in England.

Sometimes mistaken for it is the wild Service tree (the _Pyrus torminalis_), much more common in our south country hedges. Its fruit is threaded on long strings, and carried in procession at village feasts in Northamptons.h.i.+re, but is worthless. Evelyn says, "Ale and beer brewed from the berries, when ripe, of the true Service tree is an incomparable drink."

MUGWORT and WORMWOOD.

The herb Mugwort (_Artemisia vulgaris_), a Composite plant, is frequent about hedgerows and waste ground throughout Britain; and it chiefly merits a place among Herbal Simples because of a special medicinal use in certain female derangements. Its name Mugwort has [353] been attributed to "moughte," a moth, or maggot, this t.i.tle being given to the plant because Dioscorides commended it for keeping off moths. Its Anglo-Saxon synonym is _Wyrmwyrt_.

Mugwort is named from Artemis the Greek G.o.ddess of the moon, and is also called Maidenwort or Motherwort (womb wort), being a plant beneficial to the womb.