The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1894-07-11
HERBS FOR MEDICAL USE.
OLD-FAsHIoNED FOLKS WHO
TRUST TO SIMPLE REMEDIES.


cal use, and at least one such house,
more than fifty years in existence,
deals in such articles alone. These
houses supply druggists all over the
East with the raw materials of which
many standard medicines are made,
and with the traditional herbs, roots
and barks of our grandmothers. The
trade in these things even in this city
is large, and they are sold wherever
household remedies still have a place
of honor.
One of these wholesale houses issues
a catalogue that is in some sort rough
guide to the art and mystery Of herb
doctoring. 1t is these remedies that
are compounded by the so-called boz
tanic druggists, or "botanists," as
they are sometimes styled. Many of
these remedies are well-recoguized
medicines, unhesitatingly prescribed
by physicians of scientific education,
and some such physicians still cling to
inherited formulas and traditional
herbs.
Nearly five hundred herbs, roots,
seeds, flowers and barks are kept in
stock by the largest botanic druggists,
and new remedies are still from time
to time added to the list. The plants
thus kept are not only those known to
the pharmacopea as containing the
active principles of standard drugs,
nearly every familiar flower and plant,
wild or cultivated. Not only the dan
delion, May apple, boneset and pepsis-
eway of our grandmothers and the
liquorice root, slippery elm and gin
sing of the orthodox materia medica
must be kept on hand, but as we'll hun
dreds of others known to those deeply
read in the science of simples.
Fsvorite flowers and famous plants
take roles strangely unfamiliar to
those unlearned in herbs and drugs.
The bark of the tulip tree, according
to the catalogue, cures Mysteries and
dyspepsia. Thistle tea Strengthens
the system and excites perspiration.
Water lilies of one sort or another
are good for pectoral complaints and
scrofula. Watermelon seed is Eek
cellent for dropsy," doubtless on the
homeopathic principle. The white
willow is a substitute for Peruvian
bark. The wild sunAower is set down
as Invaluable in bilious collie" and
like complaints. Sweet clover is for
swellings. The strawberry, no longer
table delicacy, furnishes in its leaves
a remedy for sore throat, and in its
wandering stem cure for jaundice
and fevers. Seven kinds of snake root
furnish remedies for rheumatism,
scrofula, hives, Group, fevers and
some complaints of the stomach.
The Irish shamrock, losing its en-
blematic significance, is used to
make an infusion for scurvy. The
familiar skunk cabbage, earliest and
most ill-smelling of blossoms, is good
for hemorrhage of the lungs, coughs
and asthma. Rosemary and rue figure
in this materia medica, the former not
for remembrance as according to
Ophelia, but for nervous and hysteri-
cal affections. Ophelia's rue, called
''herb of grace O. Sundays" lays the
unpoetic part of a cure for epilepsy,
Mysteries, hiccough and disorders of
the stomach. Galen, according to
the commentators of Shakespeare,
ascribed somewhat different curative
properties to rue. Ophelia's pansies,
under the name of hearts ease, are
not "for thoughts, but are excellent
for asthma, and good in colds and
fevers."
Many plants are enumerated as hav-
ing the properties of quinine in great
er or less degree; there are several
substitutes for opium and like doubles
for other familiar drugs. The num-
Der of plants that cure rheumatism is
marvellous, and there are more than
two dozen remedies for incipient con-
sumption of the lungs. Boxwood
bark is "nearly equal to quinine.
Cedar apples, which Walt Whitman
discourses upon as cedar plums, are
useful in common complaint of chill
dren, and cedar berries, the aromatic
and slightly sweet little blue fruit of
the cedar tree, are recommended in
tincture or infusion for dropsy. Four
parts of varieties of the dogwood are
enumerated as of medicinal value, and
as many ferns are named. The male
fern is remedy for tapeworm, and
the female fern is good for lumbago
and coughs.
All the old-fashioned flowers and
several table vegetables find place in
the list of remedies. The lady slip
per is for the nerves, especially in
hysteria, and the larkspur seed is for
dropsy. Lettuce is for colics and
coughs, and asparagus root for the
kidneys. The blossom of the ox-eyed
daisy is recommended for asthma, con
sumption and dropsical complaints.
The peony is for weak nerves and the
red rose is for "hassik hemorrhages
and catarrhs. "
Most of the patent medicines are
represented in the stock of the botanic
druggist by their original elements.
The makers of such remedies deal
largely with the wholesale houses,
and so do the makers of drugs, tine
lures, ointments and embrocations.
Forty or fifty herbs, plants and flow
ers indigenous to California and Aus
tralia are among the new additions to
the stock of botanic druggists.
There is an extensive importing
business connected with the trade in
medicinal herbs, and the druggists