Arizona republican., 1901-12-11
VIOLET LEAF CURE FOR CANCER
Scientific Scepticisms About the Dis
 ease and the Remedy.

London Lancet: A paragraph has been going the ronds of the press de- scribing how a tumor of a tonsil, the diagnosis of which was made certain by microscopic examination of a small portion renewed" was "cured" by the application of a number of fomenta- tions made from infusion of green violet leaves The patient, in gratitude for her recovery, has had printed some leaflets describing the mode of prepara- tion and application of the infusion. We can fully enrer into her feelings.
 She had suffered greatly for four months from a throat affection which was relieved by no treatment. She grew steadily worse and her life was de- spaired of. The diagnosis of "cancer'' seemed to be confirmed by microscopic examination. Within a week of the ap- plication of infusions of violet leaves much of the swelling had disappeared and all pain had ceased, and in a fort night the cancer of the tonsil had entirely disappeared. Overjoyed at her own recovery, she hastens to make known to other sufferers the marvellous and simple method of treatment ignor- ant that already many hopes of recov- cry have been founded on similar un- substantial basis. The whole import ance of the story depends on the accu-
 
 All who are familiar with the clinical signs of a malignant disease of the tonsil can easily believe that it is not difficult to mistake deepseated infiam- nation of the region for a malignant growth. As to the microscopic exami- nation. the arrangement of the epithe- Hum of normal tonsil may easily re- semble the epithelial down-g -growths of an epithelioma and the resemblance is st r-il txrha flo, nation is present The history of the case points to a very natural error of diagnosis.
 The violet leaf. by the way, figures not infrequently among the recipes of the old Anglo Norman writer's, whose manuscripts are preserved in the Brit ish museum. In modern pharmacopeias the violet is noted for its cathartic and emitic qualities, or, to speak more ac- curately. the Viola tricolor, or pansy. possesses these useful attributes The dog violet also is vaguely recorded in an old edition of Balfour's Botany" QS5D to have been at some time or other prescribed for "skin disease In the age of the Plantagenets monkish medical writers treated most diseases with the violet, whether dog, pansy or sweet March they do not state. Inter mingled with multiplicity of other ingredients the modest HOWer was used to treat "a streytness of the hert" an illness akin, we may suppose. to dys- pepsia- It was said to be good also for the stone. and if a broken fragment of bone had to be expelled from the flesh the violet, with other herbs, was con sidered most useful.
 Into these old medical mixtures the violet was always introduced in "a good handful and we are at liberty to suppose that its pleasant perfume. in an age when contrasts were much insisted on, was supposed to work won ders against noisome suppurative ail- ments- The Anglo Norman writer of Manuscript F in Henslow's valuable account of early English recipes grave ly mentions that a decoction of violet leaves, in conjunction with several other herbs. will enable a sufferer to slay the worm in a sore after its pres ence has been duly discovered by the all-night application of piece of new cheese The violet leaf, according to the same forgotten scribe, whom Prof. Skeat pronounces to have been a Nor man-kentish man unfamiliar with English, is useful in the process of wound healing, but the medieval au- thorities never thought of touring canker'' by means of violets. Nor do we think that such a method of therapy will find a place in twentieth-c century pharmacology.