Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure Part 39

It gives rise to an active flow of urine when taken in considerable doses, and when administered in small doses of the diluted tincture, it has proved curative of bed wetting in young children. Gerard tells that "Plantain leaves stuped stayeth the inordinate flux of the terms, though it hath continued many years." For inflamed protruding piles, a broad-leaved Plantain reduced to a pulp, and kept bound to the parts by a compress, will give sure and speedy relief.

Highlanders call it _Slanlus_, the healing plant.

The Ribwort Plantain (_Plantago lanceolata_), Ribgra.s.s, Soldiers, or c.o.c.ks and Hens, is named from the strong parallel veins in its leaves. The flower stalks are termed Kemps, from _campa_, a warrior. The leaves are astringent, and useful for healing sores when applied thereto, and for dressing wounds. This Plantain is also named Hardheads, Fighting c.o.c.ks, and in Germany, Devil's Head, being used in divination. Children challenge one another to a game of striking off the heads.

Toads are thought to cure themselves of their ailments by eating its leaves. In Suss.e.x, it is known as Lamb's Tongue. The powdered root of the Ribwort Plantain is of use for curing vernal ague, a dessertspoonful being given for a dose, two or three times in a day.

The Water Plantain (_Alisma Plantago_), belonging to a different natural order, is common on the margins of our rivers and ditches, getting its name from the Celtic _alos_, water, and being called also the greater Thrumwort, from thrum, the warp end of a weaver's web.

The root and leaves contain an acrid juice, dispersed by heat, which is of service for irritability of the bladder. After [436] the root is boiled so as to dissipate this medicinal juice it makes an edible starchy vegetable.

This plant is commonly cla.s.sed with the Plantains because its leaves resemble theirs; but in general characteristics and qualities it more properly belongs to the _Ranunculaceoe_.

Its fresh leaves applied to the skin will raise a blister, and may be used for such a purpose, especially to relieve the swollen legs of dropsical subjects when the vesicles should be punctured and the serum drawn off. They contain a pungent butyraceous volatile oil.

The seeds dislodged from the dry, ripe plant, by striking it smartly on a table, are good in decoction against bleedings, and are employed by country people for curing piles. About the Russian Empire the Water Plantain is still regarded as efficacious against hydrophobia. Dr. George Johnston says: "In the Government of Isola it has never failed of a cure for the last twenty-five years."

Reduced to powder it is spread over bread and b.u.t.ter, and is eaten.

Likewise, cures of rabid dogs by this plant are reported; and in America it is renowned as a remedy against the bite of the rattlesnake. The tubers contain a nutritious substance, and are eaten by the Tartars.

_Apropos_ of this "Water Plantain" a Teesdale proverb says: "He's nar a good weaver that leaves lang _thrums_."

The small seeds of a Plantain gra.s.s which grows commonly in Southern Europe, the Fleawort, or _Plantago Psyllium_, have been known from time immemorial as an easy and popular aperient. In France these Psyllium seeds, given in a dessertspoonful dose, are widely prescribed as a laxative in lieu of mineral aperient waters, or the morning Seidlitz. They act after being soaked for some hours in cold water, by their mucilage, and [437] when swallowed, by virtue of a laxative oil set free within the intestines. The gra.s.s is well known in some parts as "Clammy Plantain," and it has leafless heads with toothed leaves. These seeds are dispensed by the London druggists who supply French medicines.

POPPY.

The Scarlet Poppy of our cornfields (_Papaver Rhoeas_) is one of the most brilliant and familiar of English wild flowers, being strikingly conspicuous as a weed by its blossoms rich in scarlet petals, which are black at the base. The t.i.tle _Papaver_ has been derived from pap, a soft food given to young infants, in which it was at one time customary to boil Poppy seeds for the purpose of inducing sleep. Provincially this plant bears the t.i.tles of "Cop Rose"

(from its rose-like flowers, and the b.u.t.ton-like form of its cop, or capsule) and "Canker Rose," from its detriment to wheat crops.

The generic term _Rhoeas_ comes from _reo_, to fall, because the scarlet petals have so fragile a hold on their receptacles; and the plant has been endowed with the sobriquet, "John Silver Pin, fair without and foul within." In the Eastern counties of England any article of finery brought out only occasionally, and worn with ostentation by a person otherwise a slattern, is called "Joan Silver Pin." After this sense the appellation has been applied to the Scarlet Poppy. Its showy flower is so attractive to the eye, whilst its inner juice is noxious, and stains the hands of those who thoughtlessly crush it with their fingers.

"And Poppies a sanguine mantle spread, For the blood of the dragon St. Margaret shed."

Robert Turner naively says, "The Red Poppy Flower (_Papaver erratic.u.m_) resembleth at its bottom the settling [438] of the 'Blood in pleurisie'"; and, he adds, "how excellent is that flower in diseases of the pleurisie with similar surfeits hath been sufficiently experienced."

It is further called Blindy Buff, Blind Eyes, Headwarke, and Headache, from the stupefying effects of smelling it. Apothecaries make a syrup of a splendid deep colour from its vividly red petals; but this does not exercise any soporific action like that concocted from the white Poppy, which is a sort of modified opiate, suitable for infants under certain conditions, when sanctioned by a doctor.

Otherwise, all sedatives of a narcotic sort are to be strongly condemned for use by mothers, or nurses:--

"But a child that bids the world 'Good-night'

In downright earnest, and cuts it quite, (A cherub no art can copy), 'Tis a perfect picture to see him lie, As if he had supped on dormouse pie, An ancient cla.s.sical dish, by-the-bye, With a sauce of syrup of Poppy."

Petronius, in the time of Nero, A.D. 80, "delivered an odd receipt for dressing dormouse sausages, and serving them up with Poppies and honey, which must have been a very soporiferous dainty, and as good as owl pye to such as want a nap after dinner."

The white Poppy is specially cultivated in Britain for the sake of its seed capsules, which possess attributes similar to opium, but of a weaker strength. These capsules are commonly known as Poppyheads, obtained from the druggist for use in domestic fomentations to allay pain. Also from the capsules, without their seeds, is made the customary syrup of White Poppies, which is so familiar as a sedative for childhood; but it should be always remembered that infants of tender years are highly susceptible to the influence even of this mild form [439] of opium. The true gum opium, and laudanum, which is its tincture, are derived from Eastern Poppies (_Papaver somniferum_) by incisions made in the capsules at a proper season of the year. The cultivated Poppy of the garden will afford English opium in a like manner, but it is seldom used for this purpose. A milky juice exudes when the capsules of these cultivated flowers are cut, or bruised. They are familiar to most children as drumsticks, plucked in the garden after the gaudy petals of the flowers have fallen off. The leaves and stems likewise afford some of the same juice, which, when insp.i.s.sated, is known as English opium. The seeds of the white Poppy yield by expression a bland nutritive oil, which may be subst.i.tuted for that of olives, or sweet almonds, in cooking, and for similar uses. Dried Poppy-heads, formerly in constant request for making hot soothing stupes, or for application directly to a part in pain, are now superseded for the most part by the many modern liquid preparations of opium handy for the purpose, to be mixed with hot water, or applied in poultices.

For outward use laudanum may be safely added to stupes, hot or cold, a teaspoonful being usually sufficient for the purpose, or perhaps two, if the pain is severe; and powdered opium may be incorporated with one or another ointment for a similar object. If a decoction of Poppy capsules is still preferred, it should be made by adding to a quarter-of-a-pound of white Poppy heads (free from seeds, and broken up in a mortar) three pints of boiling water; then boil for ten or fifteen minutes, and strain off the decoction, which should measure about two pints.

Dr. Herbert Snow, resident physician at the Brompton Cancer Hospital, says (1895) he has found: "after a [440] long experience, Opium exhibits a strong inhibitive influence on the cancer elements, r.e.t.a.r.ding and checking the cell growth, which is a main feature of the disease. Even when no surgical operation has been performed, Opium is the only drug which markedly checks cancer growth: and the early employment of this medicine will usually add years of comfortable life to the otherwise shortened s.p.a.ce of the sufferer's existence." Opium gets its name from the Greek _apos_, juice.

The seeds of the white Poppy are known us mawseed, or balewort, and are given as food to singing birds. In old Egypt these seeds were mixed with flour and honey, and made into cakes.

Pliny says: "The rustical peasants of Greece glazed the upper crust of their loaves with yolks of eggs, and then bestrewed them with Poppy seeds," thus showing that the seeds were then considered free from narcotic properties. And in Queen Elizabeth's time these seeds were strewn over confectionery, whilst the oil expressed from them was "delightful to be eaten when taken with bread."

White Poppy capsules, when dried, furnish papaverine and narcotine, with some mucilage, and a little waxy matter. The seeds contained within the capsules yield Poppy seed oil, with a fixed oil, and a very small quant.i.ty of morphia--about five grains in a pound of white Poppy seeds. In some parts of Russia the seeds are put into soups.

The Poppy was cultivated by the Greeks before the time of Hippocrates. It has long been a symbol of death, because sending persons to sleep. Ovid says, concerning the Cave of Somnus:--

"Around whose entry nodding Poppies grow, And all cool Simples that sweet rest bestow."

[441] The common scarlet Poppy was called by the Anglo-Saxons "Chesebolle," "Chebole," or "Chybolle," from the ripe capsule resembling a round cheese.

There is a Welsh Poppy, with yellow flowers; and a horned Poppy, named after Glaucus, common on our sea coasts, with sea-green leaves, and large blossoms of golden yellow. Glaucus, a fisherman of Boeotia, observed that all the fishes which he caught received fresh vigour when laid on the ground, and were immediately able to leap back into the sea. He attributed these effects to some herb growing in the gra.s.s, and upon tasting the leaves of the Sea Poppy he found himself suddenly moved with an intense desire to live in the sea; wherefore he was made a sea-G.o.d by Ocea.n.u.s and Tethys.

Borlase says: "That in the Scilly Islands the root of the Sea Poppy is so much valued for removing all pains in the breast, stomach, and intestines, as well as so good for disordered lungs, whilst so much better there than in other places, that the apothecaries of Cornwall send thither for it; and some persons plant these roots in their gardens in Cornwall, and will not part with them under sixpence a root." The scarlet petals of the wild Poppy, very abundant in English cornfields, when treated with sulphuric acid make a splendid red dye. With gorgeous tapestry cut from these crimson petals, the clever "drapery bee" (_Apis papaveris_) upholsters the walls of her solitary cell. Bruised leaves of the wild, or the garden Poppy, if applied to a part which has been stung by a bee or a wasp, will give prompt relief.

POTATO.

Our invaluable Potato, which enters so largely into the dietary of all cla.s.ses, belongs to the Nightshade tribe of [442] dangerous plants, though termed "solanaceous" as a natural order because of the sedative properties which its several genera exercise to lull pain.

This Potato, the _Solanum tuberosum_, is so universally known as a plant that it needs no particular description. It is a native of Peru, and was imported in 1586 by Thomas Heriot, mathematician and colonist, being afterwards taken to Ireland from Virginia by Sir Walter Raleigh, and pa.s.sing from thence over into Lancas.h.i.+re. He knew so little of its use that he tried to eat the fruit, or poisonous berries, of the plant. These of course proved noxious, and he ordered the new comers to be rooted out. The gardener obeyed, and in doing so first learnt the value of their underground wholesome tubers. But not until the middle of the eighteenth century, were they common in this country as an edible vegetable. "During 1629," says Parkinson, "the Potato from Virginia was roasted under the embers, peeled and sliced: the tubers were put into sack with a little sugar, or were baked with cream, marrow, sugar, spice, etc., in pies, or preserved and candied by the comfit makers." But he most probably refers here to the Batatas, or sweet Potato, a Convolvulus, which was a popular esculent vegetable at that date, of tropical origin, and to which our Potato has since been thought to bear a resemblance.

This Batatas, or sweet Potato, had the reputation, like Eringo root, of being able to restore decayed vigour, and so Falstaff is made by Shakespeare to say: "Let the sky rain potatoes, hail kissing comfits, and snow eringoes." For a considerable while after their introduction the Potato tubers were grown only by men of fortune as a delicacy; and the general cultivation of this vegetable was strongly opposed by the public, [443] chiefly by the Puritans, because no mention of it could be found in the Bible.

Also in France great opposition was offered to the recognised use of Potatoes: and it is said that Louis the Fifteenth, in order to bring the plant into favour, wore a bunch of its flowers in the b.u.t.ton hole of his coat on a high festival. Later on during the Revolution quite a mania prevailed for Potatoes. Crowds perambulated the streets of Paris shouting for "la liberte, et des Batatas"; and when Louis the Sixteenth had been dethroned the gardens of the Tuileries were planted with Potatoes. Cobbett, in this country, exclaimed virulently against the tuber as "hogs' food," and hated it as fiercely as he hated tea. The stalks, leaves, and green berries of the plant share the narcotic and poisonous attributes of the nightshades to which it belongs; and the part which we eat, though often thought to be a root, is really only an underground stem, which has not been acted on by light so as to develop any poisonous tendencies, and in which starch is stored up for the future use of the plant.

The stalks, leaves, and unripe fruit yield an active principle apparently very powerful, which has not yet been fully investigated.

There are two sorts of tubers, the red and the white. A roasted Potato takes two hours to digest; a boiled one three hours and a half.

"After the Potato," says an old proverb, "cheese."

Chemically the Potato contains citric acid, like that of the lemon, which is admirable against scurvy: also potash, which is equally antis...o...b..tic, and phosphoric acid, yielding phosphorus in a quant.i.ty less only than that afforded by the apple, and by wheat. It is of the first importance that the potash salts should be retained by the potato during cooking: and the [444] tubers should therefore be steamed with their coats on; else if peeled, and then steamed, they lose respectively seven and five per cent. of potash, and phosphoric acid.

If boiled after peeling they lose as much as thirty-three per cent. of potash, and twenty-three per cent. of phosphoric acid. "The roots,"

says Gerard, "were forbidden in Burgundy, for that they were persuaded the too frequent use of them causeth the leprosie."

Nevertheless it is now believed that the Potato has had much to do with expelling leprosy from England. The affliction has become confined to countries where the Potato is not grown.

Boiled or steamed Potatoes should turn out floury, or mealy, by reason of the starch granules swelling up and filling the cellular tissue, whilst absorbing the alb.u.minous contents of its cells. Then the alb.u.men coagulates, and forms irregular fibres between the starch grains. The most active part of the tuber lies just beneath the skin, as may be shown by pouring some tincture of guaiac.u.m over the cut surface of a Potato, when a ring of blue forms close to the skin, and is darkest there while extending over the whole cut surface. Abroad there is a belief the Potato thrives best if planted on Maundy Thursday. Rustic names for it are: Taiders, Taities, Leather Coats, Leather Jackets, Lapstones, Pinks, No Eyes, Flukes, Blue Eyes, Red Eyes, and Murphies; in Lancas.h.i.+re Potatoes are called Spruds, and small Potatoes, Sprots.

The peel or rind of the tuber contains a poisonous substance called "solanin," which is dissipated and rendered inert when the whole Potato is boiled, or steamed. Stupes of hot Potato water are very serviceable in some forms of rheumatism. To make the [445]

decoction for this purpose, boil one pound of Potatoes (not peeled, and divided into quarters.) in two pints of water slowly down to one pint; then foment the swollen and painful parts with this as hot as it can be borne. Similarly some of the fresh stalks of the plant, and its unripe berries, as well as the unpeeled tubers cut up as described, if infused for some hours in cold water, will make a liquor in which the folded linen of a compress may be loosely rung out, and applied most serviceably under waterproof tissue, or a double layer of dry flannel. The carriage of a small raw Potato in the trousers' pocket has been often found preventive of rheumatism in a person predisposed thereto, probably by reason of the sulphur, and the narcotic principles contained in the peel. Ladies in former times had their dresses supplied with special bags, or pockets, in which to carry one or more small raw Potatoes about their person for avoiding rheumatism.

If peeled and pounded in a mortar, uncooked Potatoes applied cold make a very soothing cataplasm to parts that have been scalded, or burnt. In Derbys.h.i.+re a hot boiled Potato is used against corns; and for frost-bites the mealy flour of baked potatoes, when mixed with sweet oil and applied, is very healing.

The skin of the tuber contains corky wood which swells in boiling with the jackets on, and which thus serves to keep in all the juices so that the digestibility of the Potato is increased; at the same time water is prevented from entering and spoiling the flavour of the vegetable. The proportion of muscle-forming food (nitrogen) in the Potato is very small, and it takes ten and a half pounds of the tubers to equal one pound of butcher's meat in nutritive value.

The Potato is composed mainly of starch, which [446] affords animal heat and promotes fatness, The Irish think that these tubers foster fertility; they prefer them with the jackets on, and somewhat hard in the middle--"with the bones in." A potato pie is believed to invigorate the s.e.xual functions.

New Potatoes contain as yet no citric acid, and are hard of digestion, like sour crude apples; their nutriment, as Gerard says, "is sadly windy," the starch being immature, and not readily acted on by the saliva during mastication. "The longer I live," said shrewd Sidney Smith, "the more I am convinced that half the unhappiness in the world proceeds from a vexed stomach, or vicious bile: from small stoppages, or from food pressing in the wrong place. Old friends.h.i.+ps may be destroyed by toasted cheese; and tough salted meat has led a man not infrequently to suicide."

A mature Potato yields enough citric acid even for commercial purposes; and there is no better cleaner of silks, cottons, and woollens, than ripe Potato juice. But even of ripe Potatoes those that break into a watery meal in the boiling are always found to prove greatly diuretic, and to much increase the quant.i.ty of urine.