The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1901-08-18

the correlation of force. Maybe it is
only a whim-but / have a strong be-
lief that the healing herbs help us by
giving back to us their own latent vi
tality stored up in root, or seed, or
precious inner bark. Any herbist will
tell you medicinal virtue lies mainly
in those parts. Any botanist or forest
err will tell you further that it is in
just those parts plants keep their re-
serves of life. Seeds change in new
plants, roots feed old ones, and new
and old and flourish by grace of the
inner bark. Girdle a tree, leaving but
an inch of its inner bark intact, and
the tree will live, heal its own hurts,
and after a while swell the inch strip
to the dimensions of trunk. BY and
by, say a hundred years, the new trunk
will have overgrown and swallowed the
almost fatal scar. There will be a
burl, sort of squat malformation to
mark the scar, but the tree itself win
be sound and healthy. New wood
swelled from below and above will have
met, joined over the dead tissue, and
ended by uniting so perfectly that new
wood layers form with perfect grain
outside of the AK marks.
A March Tonic.
1.-THE exordium is longer than the SER
mon. l began by way of telling some-
thing about our old time spring medi-
cines. Myl How my wise women
friends use to help me through the
season! Since 1 did not scott at their
wisdom, nothing in their precious
stores was too good for me. When /
found an old man, a nursing woman,
or a puny and pindling child with
sore mouth, fever restlessneSS and
lack of appetite toward the end OF
March knew what was needed-yellow
puccoon. It's an old plant. Materia
medica recognizes it as Hydrastic Can
adensis, but 1t grows pretty well all
over these United States. Aside from
its medical qualities. it has the curious
property of dyeing linen yellow, though
1t scarcely colors cotton, and gives
very different hue-one muddy and din
gy-to silk and wool The root of 1t
is the thing. 1t is fine. almost fringy,
of a bright golden yellow, and when
fresh dug has strongly narcotic smell.
Drying changes all that. The dried
root is fragrant enough for a sachet.
Indeed, 1 know few doors sweeter and
more grateful to weak nerves and stom-
achs. The taste is intensely bitter
not a napseous bitter, but tonic, with
a clean bite and a most refreshing af-
ter taste. Medically, the root is at once
tonic, Alternative, laxative and diu-
retic. No wonder it was sovereign for
w
than natures advertisements that the
whole digestive tract is sadly out of
keller.
Most times the sick folk chewed the
dry puccoon root. If there were pains
and rheumatic indications, bitter was
made from the puccoon root, mixed
with black snake root, Cimifuga Race
mosa. Both were infused for three
days in the sunshine. having been well
covered with cold rain water. The in
fusions were strained mixed and put
into bottle with bits OF native sarsa-
parilla root. Whisky or brandy was
added in proportion of one-half or two
thirds. The dose was a wineglassful
as often as the stomach would bear it.
Where whole families suffered from
spring fever there was a big jug of the
bitters brewed. By the time the jug
was empty everybody was we'll.
For Feverish Colds.
Red puccoon. Sanguinaria Canaden-
sis, is wholly unlike the yellow-in leaf,
bloom, root and properties. A quick
but safe emetic, it was, along with in
digo, the standby in cases of Group.
AS 1t is further a good laxitive and fine
expectorant, it came into play for every
sort of feverish cold. 1t has a curious
compound three lobe leaf, dark green,
richly notified with red. Where the
Lnree lODeS JOIN Lnere Is a pert upStaHu-
ing dull red flower, which country chill
dren delight to call Jack-in-th e-pulpit.
In the fall the flower is succeeded by a
clum of coral red berries, nearly as
gorgeous as the seed of ginseng or the
cones of Indian turnip.
Indian turnip. by the way. was an
other very present help in all manner
of throat and lung troubles, besides
heavy colds. If the fiery furnace was
any hotter than that same root, I'm
mighty sorry for Shadrach, Meshach
and Abednego. Its whitening, mouth
twisting holiness was a sort of cross
betwixt horse-radish, cayenne pepper
and a green persimmon. 1t was scraped
and swallowed when heroic treatment
was necessary. If time permitted, it
was either infused in whisky or cooked
with maple sugar to form a burning
candy. Either way II would knock a
cough and lung soreness gallywest in
about twenty-four hours.
II forgot to say of the black snake
root that it's better than arnica for
green wounds and bruises. This, of
course, in tincture, which is made by
infusing the root a week in cold water,
straining and adding its own bulk of
whisky or alcohol.