The Jennings daily record. [volume] (Jennings, La.) 1900-1903, 1902-05-19
THE EFFICACY OF HERBS
FACTS LITTLE KNOWN CONCERN.
ING EVEN FAMILIAR FRUITS.


Straight Down From the Days When
Monks and Old Women Made Study
OF Doctortng.
Several large wholesale drug houses
down town, says the New York Jour
nal, find it worth while to keep in stock
large assortment of herbs for medical
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 wher-
ever household remedies still have a
place of honor.
One Of these wholesale houses issues
catalogue that is in some sort a
rough guide to the art and mystery of
herb doctoring. 1t is these remedies
that are compounded by the so-ca1led
botanic druggists, or "botanists," as
they are sometimes styled. Many OF
these remedies are well recognized
medicines, unhesitatingly prescribed by
physicians of scientific education, and
some such physicians still cling to in
herited formulas and traditional herbs.
Many of the botanical remedies
come straight down from the days
when monks, old women and all sorts
Of mousing folks. good and bad, made
It their business to study the properties
of roots and herbs. Some must have
been borrowed from the Indian medf-
cine men, and doubtless Roger Chilling
worth gathered in the Puritan grave
yards many Of the ''simples" that now
figure in the catalogues Of the botanic
druggists. Some of the best known of
these herbs are at least as old as Galen,
and scores of them have run for CEN
turtles through history and literature.
The wholesale botanic druggists are
redOlent of their stock in trade.
Nearly 500 roots, herbs, seeds. flow
ers and barks are kept in stock by
the largest botanic druggists, and new
remedies are still from time to time
added to the lists. The plants thus
kept are not only those known to the
pharmacopoeia as containing the active
~ every familiar plant, wild or cult
waited. Not only the dandelion. may
apple, boneset and pepsseway of our
grandmothers and the licorice root, slip
perry elm and ginseng of the orthodox
materia medica must be kept on hand,
but as well hundreds of others known
to those deeply read in the science Of
simples.
Favorite flowers and famous plants
takes 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 tree strengthens
the system and eXcites perspiration."
Water lilies of one sort or another are
good for pectoral complaints and scrof-
ula. Watermelon seed is excellent
for dropsy," doubtless upon the homeo-
pathic principle. The white willow Is
a substitute for Peruvian bark. The
wild sunflower is set down as "invalua-
BILE in bilious collie" and like COM
plants. Sweet clover is for swellings.
The strawberry furnishes in its
leaves a remedy for sore throat, and in
its wandering stem a cure for jaundice
and fevers. Seven kinds of snake root
furnish remedies for rheumatism, drop
sy, hysteria, collie, backache measles,
scrofula, hives, Group, fevers and some
complaints of the stomach.
Many plants are enumerated as hav-
ing the properties of quinine i'll greater
OF less degree. There are several sub
stituteS for opium, and like doubles for
other familiar drugs. The number of
plants that cure rheumatism is mar
veiious, and there are more than two
dozen remedies for incipient consump-
ton OF the lungs. BoXwood bark is
nearly equal to quinine.'
Cedar apples, which Walt Whitman
discourSes upon as cedar plumS," are
useful in Il 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 or varieties o the dogwood are
enumerated as OF medicinal value. and
as many ferns are named. The male
fern is Il remedy for tapeworm, and the
female fern is good for lumbago and
coughs.
All the old-fashioued flowers and sew
cradle table vegetables find place in the
list OF remedies The ladyslipper is
for the nerves, especially in hysteria.
and larkspur seed is for .iropsy. Let
tuce is for COLES and coughs. and as
paragus roots for the kidneys. The
mended for asthma, consumption and
Il, e