Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure.

by William Thomas Fernie.

PREFACE.

It may happen that one or another enquirer taking up this book will ask, to begin with, "What is a Herbal Simple?" The English word "Simple," composed of two Latin words, _Singula plica_ (a single fold), means "Singleness," whether of material or purpose.

From primitive times the term "Herbal Simple" has been applied to any homely curative remedy consisting of one ingredient only, and that of a vegetable nature. Many such a native medicine found favour and success with our single-minded forefathers, this being the "reverent simplicity of ancienter times."

In our own nursery days, as we now fondly remember, it was: "Simple Simon met a pieman going to the fair; said Simple Simon to the pieman, 'Let me taste your ware.'" That ingenuous youth had but one idea, connected simply with his stomach; and his sole thought was how to devour the contents of the pieman's tin. We venture to hope our readers may be equally eager to stock their minds with the sound knowledge of Herbal Simples which this modest Manual seeks to provide for their use.

Healing by herbs has always been popular both [xviii] with the cla.s.sic nations of old, and with the British islanders of more recent times. Two hundred and sixty years before the date of Hippocrates (460 B.C.) the prophet Isaiah bade King Hezekiah, when sick unto death, "take a lump of Figs, and lay it on the boil; and straightway the King recovered."

Iapis, the favourite pupil of Apollo, was offered endowments of skill in augury, music, or archery. But he preferred to acquire a knowledge of herbs for service of cure in sickness; and, armed with this knowledge, he saved the life of AEneas when grievously wounded by an arrow. He averted the hero's death by applying the plant "Dittany," smooth of leaf, and purple of blossom, as plucked on the mountain Ida.

It is told in _Malvern Chase_ that Mary of Eldersfield (1454), "whom some called a witch," famous for her knowledge of herbs and medicaments, "descending the hill from her hut, with a small phial of oil, and a bunch of the 'Danewort,' speedily enabled Lord Edward of March, who had just then heavily sprained his knee, to avoid danger by mounting 'Roan Roland' freed from pain, as it were by magic, through the plant-rubbing which Mary administered."

In Shakespeare's time there was a London street, named Bucklersbury (near the present Mansion House), noted for its number of druggists who sold Simples and sweet-smelling herbs.

We read, in [ix] _The Merry Wives of Windsor_, that Sir John Falstaff flouted the effeminate fops of his day as "Lisping hawthorn buds that smell like Bucklersbury in simple time."

Various British herbalists have produced works, more or less learned and voluminous, about our native medicinal plants; but no author has. .h.i.therto radically explained the why and where fore of their ultimate curative action. In common with their early predecessors, these several writers have recognised the healing virtues of the herbs, but have failed to explore the chemical principles on which such virtues depend. Some have attributed the herbal properties to the planets which rule their growth. Others have a.s.sociated the remedial herbs with certain cognate colours, ordaining red flowers for disorders of the blood, and yellow for those of the liver. "The exorcised demon of jaundice," says Conway, "was consigned to yellow parrots; that of inflammatory disease to scarlet, or red weeds." Again, other herbalists have selected their healing plants on the doctrine of allied signatures, choosing, for instance, the Viper's Bugloss as effectual against venomous bites, because of its resembling a snake; and the sweet little English Eyebright, which shows a dark pupil in the centre white ocular corolla, as of signal benefit for inflamed eyes.

Thus it has continued to happen that until the [x] last half-century Herbal Physic has remained only speculative and experimental, instead of gaining a solid foothold in the field of medical science.

Its claims have been merely empirical, and its curative methods those of a blind art:--

"Si vis curari, de morbo nescio quali, Accipias herbam; sed quale nescio; nec qua Ponas; nescio quo; curabere, nescio quando."

Your sore, I know not what, be not foreslow To cure with herbs, which, where, I do not know; Place them, well pounc't, I know not how, and then You shall be perfect whole, I know not when."

Happily now-a-days, as our French neighbours would say, _Nous avons change tout cela_, "Old things are pa.s.sed away; behold all things are become new!" Herbal Simples stand to-day safely determined on sure ground by the help of the accurate chemist.

They hold their own with the best, and rank high for homely cures, because of their proved const.i.tuents. Their manifest healing virtues are shown to depend on medicinal elements plainly disclosed by a.n.a.lysis. Henceforward the curtain of oblivion must fall on cordial waters distilled mechanically from sweet herbs, and on electuaries artlessly compounded of seeds and roots by a Lady Monmouth, or a Countess of Arundel, as in the Stuart and Tudor times. Our Herbal Simples are fairly ent.i.tled at last to independent promotion from the shelves of the amateur still-room, from [xi]

the rustic ventures of the village grandam, and from the shallow practices of self styled botanical doctors in the back streets of our cities.

"I do remember an apothecary,-- And hereabouts he dwells,--whom late I noted In tatter'd weeds, with overwhelming brows, _Culling of Simples_; meagre were his looks; And in his needy shop a tortoise hung, An alligator stuff'd, and other skins Of ill-shap'd fishes; and about his shelves A beggarly account of empty boxes, Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds, Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses Were thinly scattered to make up a show."

_Romeo and Juliet_, Act V. Sc. 1.

Chemically a.s.sured, therefore, of the sterling curative powers which our Herbal Simples possess, and anxious to expound them with a competent pen, the present author approaches his task with a zealous purpose, taking as his pattern, from the _Comus_ of Milton:--

"A certain shepherd lad Of small regard to see to, yet well skilled In every virtuous plant, and healing herb; He would beg me sing; Which, when I did, he on the tender gra.s.s Would sit, and hearken even to constancy; And in requital ope his leathern scrip, And show me _Simples_, of a thousand names, Telling their strange, and vigorous faculties."

Shakespeare said, three centuries ago, "throw physic to the dogs."

But prior to him, one Doctor Key, self styled Caius, had written in the Latin [xii] tongue (_tempore_ Henry VIII.), a Medical History of the British Canine Race. His book became popular, though abounding in false concords; insomuch that from then until now medical cla.s.sics have been held by scholars in poor repute for grammar, and sound construction. Notwithstanding which risk, many a pa.s.sage is quoted here of ancient Herbal lore in the past tongues of Greece, Rome; and the Gauls. It is fondly hoped that the apt lines thus borrowed from old faultless sources will escape reproach for a defective modern rendering in Dog Latin, Mongrel Greek, or the "French of Stratford atte bowe."

Lastly, quaint old Fuller shall lend an appropriate Epilogue. "I stand ready," said he (1672), "with a pencil in one hand, and a spunge in the other, to add, alter, insert, efface, enlarge, and delete, according to better information. And if these my pains shall be found worthy to pa.s.se a second Impression, my faults I will confess with shame, and amend with thankfulnesse, to such as will contribute clearer intelligence unto me."

1895.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

On its First Reading, a Bill drafted in Parliament meets with acquiescence from the House on both sides mainly because its merits and demerits are to be more deliberately questioned when it comes up again in the future for a second closer Reading, Meanwhile, its faults can be amended, and its omissions supplied: fresh clauses can be introduced: and the whole scheme of the Bill can be better adapted to the spirit of the House inferred from its first reception.

In somewhat similar fashion the Second Edition of "Herbal Simples" is now submitted to a Parliament of readers with the belief that its ultimate success, or failure of purpose, is to depend on its present revised contents, and the amplified scope of its chapters.

The criticism which public journalists, not a few, thought proper to pa.s.s on its First Edition have been attentively considered herein. It is true their comments were in some cases so conflicting as to be difficult of practical appliance. The fabled old man and his a.s.s stand always in traditional warning against futile attempts to satisfy inconsistent objectors, or to carry into effect suggestions made by irreconcilable censors. "_Quot homines, tot [xiv]

sententioe_," is an adage signally verified when a fresh venture is made on the waters of chartered opinion. How shall the perplexed navigator steer his course when monitors in office accuse him on the one hand of lax precision throughout, and belaud him on the other for careful observance of detail? Or how shall he trim his sails when a contemptuous Standard-bearer, strangely uninformed on the point, ignores, as a leader of any repute, "one Gerard," a former famous Captain of the Herbal fleet? With the would-be Spectator's lament that Gerard's graphic drawings are regrettedly wanting here, the author is fain to concur. He feels that the absence of appropriate cuts to depict the various herbs is quite a deficiency: but the hope is inspired that a still future Edition may serve to supply this need. Certain botanical mistakes pointed out with authority by the _Pharmaceutical Journal _have here been duly corrected: and as many as fifty additional Simples will be found described in the present Enlarged Edition. At the same time a higher claim than hitherto made for the paramount importance of the whole subject is now courageously advanced.

To all who accept as literal truth the Scriptural account of the Garden of Eden it must be evident how intimately man's welfare from the first was made to depend on his uses of trees and herbs.

The labour of earning his bread in the sweat of his brow by tilling the ground: and the penalty of [xv] and thistles produced thereupon, were alike incurred by Eve's disobedience in plucking the forbidden fruit: and a signified possibility of man's eventful share in the tree of life, to "put forth his hand, and eat, and live for ever," has been more than vaguely revealed. So that with almost a sacred mission, and with an exalted motive of supreme usefulness, this Manual of healing Herbs is published anew, to reach, it is hoped, and to rescue many an ailing mortal.

Against its main principle an objection has been speciously raised, which at first sight appears of subversive weight; though, when further examined, it is found to be clearly fallacious. By an able but carping critic it was alleged that the mere chemical a.n.a.lysis of old-fashioned Herbal Simples makes their medicinal actions no less empirical than before: and that a pedantic knowledge of their const.i.tuent parts, invested with fine technical names, gives them no more scientific a position than that which our fathers understood.

But, taking, for instance, the herb Rue, which was formerly brought into Court to protect a and the Bench from gaol fever, and other infectious disease; no one knew at the time by what particular virtue the Rue could exercise this salutary power. But more recent research has taught, that the essential oil contained in this, and other allied aromatic herbs, such as Elecampane, [xvi]

Rosemary, and Cinnamon, serves by its germicidal principles (stearoptens, methyl-ethers, and camphors), to extinguish bacterial life which underlies all contagion. In a parallel way the antiseptic diffusible oils of Pine, Peppermint, and Thyme, are likewise employed with marked success for inhalation into the lungs by consumptive patients. Their volatile vapours reach remote parts of the diseased air-pa.s.sages, and heal by destroying the morbid germs which perpetuate mischief therein. It need scarcely be said the very existence of these causative microbes, much less any mode of cure by their abolishment, was quite unknown to former Herbal Simplers.

Again, in past times a large number of our native, plants acquired a well-deserved, but purely empirical celebrity, for curing scrofula and scurvy. But later discovery has shown that each of these several herbs contains lime, and earthy salts, in a subtle form of high natural sub-division: whilst, at the same time, the law of cure by medicinal similars has established the cognate fact that to those who inherit a strumous taint, infinitesimal doses of these earth salts are incontestably curative. The parents had first undergone a gradual impairment of health because of calcareous matters to excess in their general conditions of sustenance; and the lime proves potent to cure in the offspring what, through the parental surfeit, was entailed as [xvii] a heritage of disease. Just in the same way the mineral waters of Missisquoi, and Bethesda, in America, through containing siliceous qualities so sublimated as almost to defy the a.n.a.lyst, are effective to cure cancer, alb.u.minuria, and other organic complaints.

Nor is this by any means a new policy of cure. Its barbaric practice has long since obtained, even in African wilds, where the native snake doctor inoculates with his prepared snake poison to save the life of a victim otherwise fatally bitten by another snake of the same deadly virus. To Ovid, of Roman fame (20 B.C.), the same sanative axiom was also indisputably known as we learn from his lines:--

"Tunc observatas augur descendit in herbas; Usus et auxilio est anguis ab angue dato."

"Then searched the Augur low mid gra.s.s close scanned For snake to heal a snake-envenomed hand."

And with equal cogency other arguments, which are manifold, might be readily adduced, as of congruous force, to vindicate our claim in favour of a.n.a.lytical knowledge over blind experience in the methods of Herbal cure, especially if this be pursued on the broad lines of enlightened practice by similars.

So now, to be brief, and to change our allegory, "on the banks of the Nile," as Mrs. Malaprop would have pervertingly put it, with "a nice [xviii] derangement of epitaphs," we invite our many guests to a simple "dinner of herbs." Such was man's primitive food in Paradise: "every green herb bearing seed, and every tree in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed:" "the green herb for meat for every beast of the earth, and every fowl of the air." What better Preface can we indite than a grace to be said before sitting down to the meal? "Sallets," it is hoped, will be found "in the lines to make the matter savoury." Far be it from our object to preach a prelude of texts, or to weary those at our board I with a meaningless long benediction. "'Tis not so plain as the old Hill of Howth," said tender-hearted witty Tom Hood, with serio-comic truth, "a man has got his belly full of meat, because he talks with victuals in his mouth." Rather would we choose the "russet Yeas and honest kersey Noes" of st.u.r.dy yeoman speech; and cheerfully taking the head of our well-stocked table, ask in homely terms that "G.o.d will bless these the good creatures of His Herbal Simples to our saving uses, and us to His grateful service."

1897.

INTRODUCTION.

The art of _Simpling _is as old with us as our British hills. It aims at curing common ailments with simple remedies culled from the soil, or got from home resources near at hand.

Since the days of the Anglo-Saxons such remedies have been chiefly herbal; insomuch that the word "drug" came originally from their verb _drigan_, to dry, as applied to medicinal plants.

These primitive Simplers were guided in their choice of herbs partly by watching animals who sought them out for self-cure, and partly by discovering for themselves the sensible properties of the plants as revealed by their odour and taste; also by their supposed resemblance to those diseases which nature meant them to heal.

John Evelyn relates in his _Acetaria_ (1725) that "one Signor Faquinto, physician to Queen Anne (mother to the beloved martyr, Charles the First), and formerly physician to one of the Popes, observing scurvy and dropsy to be the epidemical and dominant diseases [2] of this nation, went himself into the hundreds of Ess.e.x, reputed the most unhealthy county of this island, and used to follow the sheep and cattle on purpose to observe what plants they chiefly fed upon; and of these Simples he composed an excellent electuary of marvellous effects against these same obnoxious infirmities." Also, in like manner, it was noticed by others that "the dog, if out of condition, would seek for certain gra.s.ses of an emetic or purgative sort; sheep and cows, when ill, would devour curative plants; an animal suffering from rheumatism would remain as much as it could in the sunshine; and creatures infested by parasites would roll themselves frequently in the dust." Again, William Coles in his _Nature's Paradise, or, Art of Simpling_ (1657), wrote thus: "Though sin and Sathan have plunged mankinde into an ocean of infirmities, jet the mercy of G.o.d, which is over all His works, maketh gra.s.s to grow upon the mountaines, and Herbes for the use of men; and hath not only stamped upon them a distinct forme, but also given them particular signatures, whereby a man may read even in legible characters the use of them."

The present manual of our native Herbal Simples seeks rather to justify their uses on the sound basis of accurate chemical a.n.a.lysis, and precise elementary research. Hitherto medicinal herbs have come down to us from early times as possessing only a traditional value, and as exercising merely empirical effects. Their selection has been commended solely by a shrewd discernment, and by the practice of successive centuries. But to-day a closer a.n.a.lysis in the laboratory, and skilled provings by experts have resolved the several plants into their component parts, and have chemically determined the medicinal nature of these parts, both [3] singly and collectively. So that the study and practice of curative British herbs may now fairly take rank as an exact science, and may command the full confidence of the sick for supplying trustworthy aid and succour in their times of bodily need.

Scientific reasons which are self-convincing may be readily adduced for prescribing all our best known native herbal medicines. Among them the Elder, Parsley, Peppermint, and Watercress may be taken as familiar examples of this leading fact.

Almost from time immemorial in England a "rob" made from the juice of Elderberries simmered and thickened with sugar, or mulled Elder wine concocted from the fruit, with raisins, sugar, and spices, has been a popular remedy in this country, if taken hot at bedtime, for a recent cold, or for a sore throat. But only of late has chemistry explained that Elderberries furnish "viburnic acid,"

which induces sweating, and is specially curative of inflammatory bronchial soreness. So likewise Parsley, besides being a favourite pot herb, and a garnish for cold meats, has been long popular in rural districts as a tea for catarrh of the bladder or kidneys; whilst the bruised leaves have been extolled as a poultice for swellings and open sores. At the same time, a saying about the herb has commonly prevailed that it "brings death to men, and salvation to women." Not, however, until recently has it been learnt that the sweet-smelling plant yields what chemists call "apiol," or Parsley-Camphor, which, when given in moderation, exercises a quieting influence on the main sensific centres of life--the head and the spine. Thereby any feverish irritability of the urinary organs inflicted by cold, or other nervous shock, would be subordinately allayed. Thus likewise the Parsley-Camphor (whilst serving, [4]