Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure by William Thomas Fernie (ebook reader with internet browser .TXT) 📖

Dr. Pereira says the digestibility of Celery is increased by its maceration in vinegar. As taken at table, Celery possesses certain qualities which tend to soothe nervous irritability, and to relieve sick headaches. "This herb Celery [Sellery] is for its high and grateful taste," says John Evelyn, in his Acetaria, "ever placed in the middle of the grand sallet at our great men's tables, and our Praetor's feasts, as the grace of the whole board." It contains some sugar and a volatile odorous principle, which in the wild plant smells and tastes strongly and disagreeably. The characteristic odour and flavour of the cultivated plant are due to this essential oil, which has now become of modified strength and qualities; also when freshly cut it affords albumen, starch, mucilage, and mineral matter. Why Celery accompanies cheese at the end of dinner it is not easy to see. This is as much a puzzle as why sucking pig and prune sauce should be taken in combination,—of which delicacies James Bloomfield Rush, the Norwich murderer, desired that plenty should be served for his supper the night before he was hanged, on April 20th, 1849.

Of all the bitter appetising herbs which grow in our fields and hedgerows, and which serve as excellent simple tonics, the Centaury, particularly its white flowered variety, belonging to the Gentian order of [97] plants, is the most efficacious. It shares in an abundant measure the restorative antiseptic virtues of the Field Gentian and the Buckbean. There are four wild varieties of the Centaury, square stemmed, and each bearing flat tufts of flowers which are more or less rose coloured. The ancients named this bitter plant the Gall of the Earth, and it is now known as Christ's Ladder, or Felwort.

Though growing commonly in dry pastures, in woods, and on chalky cliffs, yet the Centaury cannot be reared in a garden. Of old its tribe was called "Chironia," after Chiron, the Greek Centaur, well skilled in herbal physic; and most probably the name of our English plant was thus originated. But the Germans call the Centaury Tausendgulden kraut—"the herb of a thousand florins,"—either because of its medicinal value, or as a corruption of Centum aureum, "a hundred golden sovereigns." Centaury has become popularly reduced in Worcestershire to Centre of the Sun. Its generic adjective "erythroea" signifies red. The flowers open only in fine weather, and not after twelve o'clock (noon) in the day. Chemically the herb contains erythrocentaurin—a bitter principle of compound character,—together with the usual herbal constituents, but with scarcely any tannin. The tops of the Centaury, especially of that flore albo—with the light coloured petals—are given in infusion, or in powder, or when made into an extract. For languid digestion, with heartburn after food, and a want of appetite, the infusion prepared with cold water, an ounce of the herb to a pint is best; but for muscular rheumatism the infusion should be made with boiling water. A wineglass of either will be the proper dose, two or three times a day.

The wild Cherry (Cerasus), which occurs of two distinct kinds, has by budding and grafting begotten most of our finest garden fruits of its genus. The name _Cerasus _was derived from Kerasous, a city of Cappadocia, where the fruit was plentiful. According to Pliny, Cherries were first brought to Rome by Lucullus after his great victory over Mithridates, 89 B.C. The cultivated Cherry disappeared in this country during the Saxon period, and was not re-introduced until the reign of Henry VIII. The _Cerasus sylvestris _is a wild Cherry tree rising to the height of thirty or forty feet, and producing innumerable small globose fruits; whilst the Cerasus vulgaris, another wild Cherry, is a mere shrub, called Cerevisier in France, of which the fruit is sour and bitter. Cherry stones have been found in the primitive lake dwellings of Western Switzerland. There is a tradition that Christ gave a Cherry to St. Peter, admonishing him not to despise little things. In the time of Charles the First, Herrick, the clergyman poet, wrote a simple song, to which our well-known pretty "Cherry Ripe" has been adapted:—

    "Cherry ripe! ripe! I cry,
    Full and fair ones I come, and buy!
    If so be you ask me where
    They do grow: I answer there
    Where my Julia's lips do smile,
    There's the land: a cherry isle."

"Cherries on the ryse" (or, on twigs) was well known as a London street cry in the fifteenth century; but these were probably the fruit of the wild Cherry, or Gean tree. In France soup made from Cherries, and taken with bread, is the common sustenance of the wood cutters and charcoal burners of the forest during the [99] winter. The French distil from Cherries a liqueur named Eau de Cerises, or, in German, Kirschwasser; whilst the Italians prepare from a Cherry called Marusca the liqueur noted as Marasquin. Cherries termed as Mazzards are grown in Devon and Cornwall, A gum exudes from the bark of the Cherry tree which is equal in value to gum arabic. A caravan going from Ethiopia to Egypt, says Husselquist, and a garrison of more than two hundred men during a siege which lasted two months, were kept alive with no other food than this gum, "which they sucked often and slowly." It is known chemically as "cerasin," and differs from gum acacia in being less soluble.

The leaves of the tree and the kernels of the fruit contain a basis of prussic acid.

The American wild Cherry (Prunus virginiana) yields from its bark a larger quantity of the prussic acid principle, which is sedative to the nervous centres, and also some considerable tannin. As an infusion, or syrup, or vegetable extract, it will allay nervous palpitation of the heart, and will quiet the irritative hectic cough of consumption, whilst tending to ameliorate the impaired digestion. Its preparations can be readily had from our leading druggists, and are found to be highly useful. A teaspoonful of the syrup, with one or two tablespoonfuls of cold water, is a dose for an adult every three or four hours. The oozing of the gum-tears from the trunk and boughs is due to the operation of a minute parasitic fungus. Helena, in the Midsummer Night's Dream, paints a charming picture of the close affection between Hermia and herself—

            "So we grew together
    Like to a double Cherry-seeming parted,
    But yet a union in partition:
    Two lovely berries moulded on one stem."

CHERVIL, or BEAKED PARSLEY.

"There is found," writes Parkinson, "during June and July, in almost every English hedge, a certain plant called Choerophyllum, in show very like unto Hemlockes, of a good and pleasant smell and taste, which have caused us to term it 'Sweet Chervill.'" And in modern times this plant has taken rank as a pot herb in our gardens, though its virtues and uses are not sufficiently known. "The root is great, thick and long, exceedingly sweet in smell, and tasting like unto anise seeds. This root is much used among the Dutch people in a kind of loblolly or hotchpot, which they do eat, calling it warmus. The seeds taken as a salad whilst they are yet green, exceed all other salads by many degrees in pleasantness of taste, sweetness of smell, and wholesomeness for the cold and feeble stomach." In common with other camphoraceous and strongly aromatic herbs, by reason of its volatile oil and its terebinthine properties, the Scandix, or Sweet Chervil, was entitled to make one of the choice spices used for composing the holy oil with which the sacred vessels of the Tabernacle were anointed by Moses. It belongs to the particular group of umbelliferous plants which is endowed with balsamic gums, and with carminative essences appealing powerfully to the sense of smell.

The herb Chervil was in the mind of Roman Catullus when discoursing sweet verses of old to his friend Fabullus:—

    "Nam unguentum dabo quod meoe puelloe
    Donârunt veneres, cupidinesque.
    Quod tu quum olfacies deo rogabis
    Totum ut te faciat. Fabulle! nasum."

    "I will give you a perfume my damsels gave me,
    Sweet daughters of Venus, sad hoydens are ye!
    Which the moment you smell will incite you to pray
    My Fabullus! to live as 'all nose' from that day."

Evelyn taught (1565) that "the tender tops of Cherville should never be wanting in our sallets, being exceeding wholesome, and chearing the spirits; also that the roots boiled and cold are to be much commended for aged persons." But in 1745 several Dutch soldiers were poisoned by eating the rough wild Chervil, from which the cultivated sweet variety is to be distinguished by its having its stems swollen beneath the joints—much as our blue-blooded patricians are signalised by gouty knuckles and bunioned feet.

The botanical name of the Sweet Chervil (Choerophyllum) signifies a plant which rejoices the heart—Kairei-phyllum. "The roots," said an old writer, "are very good for old people that are dull and without courage; they gladden and comfort the spirits, and do increase their lusty strength." The juice is slightly aperient, and abundantly lacteal when mixed with goat's milk, or in gruel. Physicians formerly held this herb in high esteem, as capable of curing most chronic disorders connected with the urinary passages, and gravel. Some have even asserted that if these distempers will not yield to a constant use of Chervil, they win be scarcely curable by any other medicine. The Wild Chervil will "help to dissolve any tumours or swellings in all parts of the body speedily, if applied to the place, as also to take away the spots and marks in the flesh and skin, of congealed blood by blows or bruises." The feathery leaves of Chervil, which are of a bright emerald hue in the spring, become of a rich purple in the autumn, just as the objectionably carroty locks of Tittlebat Titmouse, in Ten Thousand a Year, became vividly green under "Cyanochaitanthropopoin," and were afterwards strangely empurpled by "Tetragmenon abracadabra," at nine and sixpence the bottle.

[102] CHESTNUTS (Horse, and Sweet).

Ever since 1633 the Horse Chestnut tree has grown and flourished in England, having been brought at first from the mountains of Northern Asia. For the most part it is rather known and admired for its wealth of shade, its large handsome floral spikes of creamy, pink-tinted blossom, and its white, soft wood, than supposed to exercise useful medicinal properties. But none the less is this tree remarkable for the curative virtues contained in its large nuts of mahogany polish, its broad palmate leaves, and its smooth silvery bark. These virtues have been discovered and made public especially by physicians and chemists of the homoeopathic school. From the large digitated leaves an extract is made which has proved of service in whooping-cough, and of which from one-third to half a teaspoonful may be given for a dose. On the Continent the bark is held in estimation for cutting short attacks of intermittent fever and ague by acting in the same way as Peruvian bark, though it is much more astringent. But the nuts are chiefly to be regarded as the medicinal belongings of the Horse Chestnut tree; and their bodily sphere of action is the rectum, or lower bowel, in cases of piles, and of obstinate constipation. Their use is particularly indicated when the bottom of the back gives out on walking, with aching and a sense of weariness in that region. Likewise, signal relief is found to be wrought by the same remedy when the throat is duskily red and dry, in conjunction with costiveness, and piles. A tincture is made (H.) from the ripe nuts with spirit of wine, for the purposes described above, or the nuts themselves are finely powdered and given in that form. These nuts are starchy, and contain so much potash, that they may be used when boiled for washing purposes. [103] In France and Switzerland they are employed for cleansing wool and bleaching linen, on account of their "saponin." Botanically, the Horse Chestnut is named AEsculus hippocastanea—the first word coming from esca, food; and the second from hippos, a horse; and Castana, the city, so called. The epithet "horse" does not imply any remedial use in diseases of that animal, but rather the size and coarseness of this species as compared with the Sweet Spanish Chestnut. In the same way we talk of the horse radish, the horse daisy, and the horse leech. In Turkey the fruit is given to horses touched or broken in the wind, but in this country horses will not eat it. Nevertheless, Horse Chestnuts may be used for fattening cattle, particularly sheep, the nuts being cut up, and mixed with oats, or beans. Their bitterness can be removed by first washing the Chestnuts in lime water. Medicinally, the ripe nut of this tree is employed, being collected in September or October, and deprived of its shell. The odour of the flowers is powerful and peculiar.