The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1894-05-27
ROOTS AND HERBS.
Old-Fashioned Folks Who Trust to the
Simplest Remedies.


New York Sun.
Several large wholesale drug houses down
town find 1t worth while to keep in stock a
large assortment OF herbs for medical use,
and at least enc such house. more than
fifty years in existence, deals in such arti-
Giles 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 place Of honor.
One OF these wholesale houses issues a
catalogue that is in some sort rough
guide to the ert and mystery of herb doc
toring 1t is these remedies that are COM
pounded by the so-called botanic druggists,
or "botanists," as they are sometimes
styled. Many of these remedies are we'll
recognized medicines. unhesitatingly pre-
scribed by physicians of scientific education,
and some such physicians still cling to in
herited formulas and traditional herbs.
Many of the botanic remedies come
straight down from the days when monks,
old women, and all sorts of odd housing
folks. good and bad, made 1t their business
to study the properties OF roots and herbs.
Some must have been borrowed of the In
dian medicine men, and doubtless Roger
Chlllingworth gathered in the Puritan
graveyard many OF the ''simples'' that now
figure in the catalogues of the botanic drug
gfsts- Some of the best known of these
herbs are at least as old as Galen, and
scores OF them have run for centuries
through history and literature The whole
sale botanic druggists are redolent Of their
stock in trade.
Nearly five hundred herbs. roots. seeds.
flowers and barks are kept in stock by the
largest botanic druggists, and new rene
dies are still from time TO time added to
the list The plants thus kept are not only
those known to the pharmacopoeia as con-
tanning the active principles OF standard
drugs. nearly every familiar Hover and
plant. wild or cultivated. Not only the
dandelion. May apple, boneset and pepsis-
eway OF our grandmothers and the licorice
root, slippery elm and gingsing of the ortho-
dox materia medica must be kept on hand
but as we'll hundreds OF others known 10
those deeply read In the science OF simples
Favorite flowers and famous plants take
roles strangely unfamiliar TO those un-
learned in herbs and drugs. The bark OF
the tulip tree, according to the catalogues,
cures Mysteries and dyspepsia. Thistle tea
SEPARATION" Water lilies Of one sort or an
other are good for pectoral complaints
and scrofula- Watermelon seed is excel
pathic principle The white willow is a
substitute for Peruvian bark. The wild
sunfiower is set down as Invaluable in
bilious collie and like complaints. Sweet
clover Is for swellings. The strawberry, no
longer q thDie ueucticy, furnishes In It's
leaves a remedy for sore throat, and in its
wandering stem a cure for jaIlndice and
levers. Seven kinds of snake root furnish
remedies for rheumatism, dropsy. hysteria,
collie backache, measles, scrofula, hives,
Group, feyers and some complaints of the
stomach
The Irish shamrock, losing it's emblematic
significance. is used to make 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 hysterical
affections. Ophelias rue, called herb OF
grace o Sundays" plays the unpoetic part
OF cure for epilepsy. mysteries. hiccough
and disorders OF the stomach Galen. ac-
eortin< to he-e6mmentators of Shaks-