Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure

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by  Fernie William Thomas

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Title: Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure Author: William
Thomas Fernie

Release Date: September 22, 2006 [eBook #19352]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) ***START OF THE
PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HERBAL SIMPLES APPROVED FOR
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USES OF CURE***

Transcribed by Ruth Hart [email protected] Transcriber’s notes:

While most of the book titles and non-English words are italicized, not all of
them are, and I have left the non-italicized terms as is.
Page numbers have been placed in sqare brackets to facilitate the use of the
table of contents and the index.

HERBAL SIMPLES APPROVED FOR MODERN USES OF CURE

by

W. T. FERNIE, M.D.
Author of “Botanical Outlines,” etc_

Second Edition.

“Medicine is mine; what herbs and Simples grow In fields and forests, all their
powers I know.”
DRYDEN.

Philadelphia:
Boericke & Tafel.
1897.

“Jamque aderat Phoebo ante alios dilectus lapis Iasides: acri quondam cui
captus amore Ipse suas artes, sua munera, laetus Apollo Augurium, citharamque
dabat, celeresque sagittas Ille ut depositi proferret fata clientis,
Scire potestates herbarum, usumque medendi Maluit, et mutas agitare
inglorius artes.”
VIRGIL, AEnid: Libr. xii. v. 391-8.

“And now lapis had appeared,
Blest leech! to Phoebus’-self endeared Beyond all men below;
On whom the fond, indulgent God His augury had fain bestowed,
His lyre-his sounding bow!
But he, the further to prolong
A fellow creature’s span, The humbler art of Medicine chose, The knowledge
of each plant that grows,
Plying a craft not known to song, An unambitious man!”

[vii]

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

It may happen that one or another enquirer taking up this book will ask, to begin
with, “What is a Herbal Simple?” The English word “Simple,” composed of two
Latin words, Singula plica (a single fold), means “Singleness,” whether of
material or purpose.
From primitive times the term “Herbal Simple” has been applied to any homely
curative remedy consisting of one ingredient only, and that of a vegetable nature.
Many such a native medicine found favour and success with our single-minded
forefathers, this being the “reverent simplicity of ancienter times.”

In our own nursery days, as we now fondly remember, it was: “Simple Simon
met a pieman going to the fair; said Simple Simon to the pieman, ‘Let me taste
your ware.’” That ingenuous youth had but one idea, connected simply with his
stomach; and his sole thought was how to devour the contents of the pieman’s
tin. We venture to hope our readers may be equally eager to stock their minds
with the sound knowledge of Herbal Simples which this modest Manual seeks to
provide for their use.

Healing by herbs has always been popular both [xviii] with the classic nations of
old, and with the British islanders of more recent times. Two hundred and sixty
years before the date of Hippocrates (460 B.C.) the prophet Isaiah bade King
Hezekiah, when sick unto death, “take a lump of Figs, and lay it on the boil; and
straightway the King recovered.”

Iapis, the favourite pupil of Apollo, was offered endowments of skill in augury,
music, or archery. But he preferred to acquire a knowledge of herbs for service
of cure in sickness; and, armed with this knowledge, he saved the life of AEneas
when grievously wounded by an arrow. He averted the hero’s death by applying
the plant “Dittany,” smooth of leaf, and purple of blossom, as plucked on the
mountain Ida.

It is told in Malvern Chase that Mary of Eldersfield (1454), “whom some called
a witch,” famous for her knowledge of herbs and medicaments, “descending the
hill from her hut, with a small phial of oil, and a bunch of the ‘Danewort,’
speedily enabled Lord Edward of March, who had just then heavily sprained his
knee, to avoid danger by mounting ‘Roan Roland’ freed from pain, as it were by
magic, through the plant-rubbing which Mary administered.”
In Shakespeare’s time there was a London street, named Bucklersbury (near the
present Mansion House), noted for its number of druggists who sold Simples and
sweet-smelling herbs.
We read, in [ix] The Merry Wives of Windsor, that Sir John Falstaff flouted the
effeminate fops of his day as “Lisping hawthorn buds that smell like
Bucklersbury in simple time.”

Various British herbalists have produced works, more or less learned and
voluminous, about our native medicinal plants; but no author has hitherto
radically explained the why and where fore of their ultimate curative action. In
common with their early predecessors, these several writers have recognised the
healing virtues of the herbs, but have failed to explore the chemical principles on
which such virtues depend. Some have attributed the herbal properties to the
planets which rule their growth. Others have associated the remedial herbs with
certain cognate colours, ordaining red flowers for disorders of the blood, and
yellow for those of the liver. “The exorcised demon of jaundice,” says Conway,
“was consigned to yellow parrots; that of inflammatory disease to scarlet, or red
weeds.” Again, other herbalists have selected their healing plants on the doctrine
of allied signatures, choosing, for instance, the Viper’s Bugloss as effectual
against venomous bites, because of its resembling a snake; and the sweet little
English Eyebright, which shows a dark pupil in the centre white ocular corolla,
as of signal benefit for inflamed eyes.

Thus it has continued to happen that until the [x] last half-century Herbal Physic
has remained only speculative and experimental, instead of gaining a solid
foothold in the field of medical science.
Its claims have been merely empirical, and its curative methods those of a blind
art:—

“Si vis curari, de morbo nescio quali, Accipias herbam; sed quale nescio; nec
qua Ponas; nescio quo; curabere, nescio quando.”

Your sore, I know not what, be not foreslow To cure with herbs, which, where,
I do not know; Place them, well pounc’t, I know not how, and then You shall be
perfect whole, I know not when.”

Happily now-a-days, as our French neighbours would say, Nous avons change
tout cela, “Old things are passed away; behold all things are become new!”
Herbal Simples stand to-day safely determined on sure ground by the help of the
accurate chemist.
They hold their own with the best, and rank high for homely cures, because of
their proved constituents. Their manifest healing virtues are shown to depend on
medicinal elements plainly disclosed by analysis. Henceforward the curtain of
oblivion must fall on cordial waters distilled mechanically from sweet herbs, and
on electuaries artlessly compounded of seeds and roots by a Lady Monmouth, or
a Countess of Arundel, as in the Stuart and Tudor times. Our Herbal Simples are
fairly entitled at last to independent promotion from the shelves of the amateur
still-room, from [xi]
the rustic ventures of the village grandam, and from the shallow practices of self
styled botanical doctors in the back streets of our cities.

“I do remember an apothecary,—
And hereabouts he dwells,—whom late I noted In tatter’d weeds, with
overwhelming brows, Culling of Simples; meagre were his looks; And in his
needy shop a tortoise hung, An alligator stuff’d, and other skins Of ill-shap’d
fishes; and about his shelves A beggarly account of empty boxes, Green earthen
pots, bladders, and musty seeds, Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses
Were thinly scattered to make up a show.”
Romeo and Juliet, Act V. Sc. 1.
Chemically assured, therefore, of the sterling curative powers which our Herbal
Simples possess, and anxious to expound them with a competent pen, the present
author approaches his task with a zealous purpose, taking as his pattern, from the
Comus of Milton:—

“A certain shepherd lad Of small regard to see to, yet well skilled In every
virtuous plant, and healing herb; He would beg me sing; Which, when I did, he
on the tender grass Would sit, and hearken even to constancy; And in requital
ope his leathern scrip, And show me Simples, of a thousand names, Telling their
strange, and vigorous faculties.”

Shakespeare said, three centuries ago, “throw physic to the dogs.”
But prior to him, one Doctor Key, self styled Caius, had written in the Latin [xii]
tongue (_tempore_ Henry VIII.), a Medical History of the British Canine Race.
His book became popular, though abounding in false concords; insomuch that
from then until now medical classics have been held by scholars in poor repute
for grammar, and sound construction. Notwithstanding which risk, many a
passage is quoted here of ancient Herbal lore in the past tongues of Greece,
Rome; and the Gauls. It is fondly hoped that the apt lines thus borrowed from
old faultless sources will escape reproach for a defective modern rendering in
Dog Latin, Mongrel Greek, or the “French of Stratford atte bowe.”

Lastly, quaint old Fuller shall lend an appropriate Epilogue. “I stand ready,” said
he (1672), “with a pencil in one hand, and a spunge in the other, to add, alter,
insert, efface, enlarge, and delete, according to better information. And if these
my pains shall be found worthy to passe a second Impression, my faults I will
confess with shame, and amend with thankfulnesse, to such as will contribute
clearer intelligence unto me.”
1895.

[xiii]

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

On its First Reading, a Bill drafted in Parliament meets with acquiescence from
the House on both sides mainly because its merits and demerits are to be more
deliberately questioned when it comes up again in the future for a second closer
Reading, Meanwhile, its faults can be amended, and its omissions supplied: fresh
clauses can be introduced: and the whole scheme of the Bill can be better
adapted to the spirit of the House inferred from its first reception.

In somewhat similar fashion the Second Edition of “Herbal Simples” is now
submitted to a Parliament of readers with the belief that its ultimate success, or
failure of purpose, is to depend on its present revised contents, and the amplified
scope of its chapters.

The criticism which public journalists, not a few, thought proper to pass on its
First Edition have been attentively considered herein. It is true their comments
were in some cases so conflicting as to be difficult of practical appliance. The
fabled old man and his ass stand always in traditional warning against futile
attempts to satisfy inconsistent objectors, or to carry into effect suggestions
made by irreconcilable censors. “_Quot homines, tot [xiv]
sententioe_,” is an adage signally verified when a fresh venture is made on the
waters of chartered opinion. How shall the perplexed navigator steer his course
when monitors in office accuse him on the one hand of lax precision throughout,
and belaud him on the other for careful observance of detail? Or how shall he
trim his sails when a contemptuous Standard-bearer, strangely uninformed on the
point, ignores, as a leader of any repute, “one Gerard,” a former famous Captain
of the Herbal fleet? With the would-be Spectator’s lament that Gerard’s graphic
drawings are regrettedly wanting here, the author is fain to concur. He feels that
the absence of appropriate cuts to depict the various herbs is quite a deficiency:
but the hope is inspired that a still future Edition may serve to supply this need.
Certain botanical mistakes pointed out with authority by the Pharmaceutical
Journal have here been duly corrected: and as many as fifty additional Simples
will be found described in the present Enlarged Edition. At the same time a
higher claim than hitherto made for the paramount importance of the whole
subject is now courageously advanced.

To all who accept as literal truth the Scriptural account of the Garden of Eden it
must be evident how intimately man’s welfare from the first was made to depend
on his uses of trees and herbs.
The labour of earning his bread in the sweat of his brow by tilling the ground:
and the penalty of [xv] and thistles produced thereupon, were alike incurred by
Eve’s disobedience in plucking the forbidden fruit: and a signified possibility of
man’s eventful share in the tree of life, to “put forth his hand, and eat, and live
for ever,” has been more than vaguely revealed. So that with almost a sacred
mission, and with an exalted motive of supreme usefulness, this Manual of
healing Herbs is published anew, to reach, it is hoped, and to rescue many an
ailing mortal.

Against its main principle an objection has been speciously raised, which at first
sight appears of subversive weight; though, when further examined, it is found to
be clearly fallacious. By an able but carping critic it was alleged that the mere
chemical analysis of old-fashioned Herbal Simples makes their medicinal
actions no less empirical than before: and that a pedantic knowledge of their
constituent parts, invested with fine technical names, gives them no more
scientific a position than that which our fathers understood.

But, taking, for instance, the herb Rue, which was formerly brought into Court to
protect a and the Bench from gaol fever, and other infectious disease; no one
knew at the time by what particular virtue the Rue could exercise this salutary
power. But more recent research has taught, that the essential oil contained in
this, and other allied aromatic herbs, such as Elecampane, [xvi]
Rosemary, and Cinnamon, serves by its germicidal principles (stearoptens,
methyl-ethers, and camphors), to extinguish bacterial life which underlies all
contagion. In a parallel way the antiseptic diffusible oils of Pine, Peppermint,
and Thyme, are likewise employed with marked success for inhalation into the
lungs by consumptive patients. Their volatile vapours reach remote parts of the
diseased air-passages, and heal by destroying the morbid germs which perpetuate
mischief therein. It need scarcely be said the very existence of these causative
microbes, much less any mode of cure by their abolishment, was quite unknown
to former Herbal Simplers.

Again, in past times a large number of our native, plants acquired a well-
deserved, but purely empirical celebrity, for curing scrofula and scurvy. But later
discovery has shown that each of these several herbs contains lime, and earthy
salts, in a subtle form of high natural subdivision: whilst, at the same time, the
law of cure by medicinal similars has established the cognate fact that to those
who inherit a strumous taint, infinitesimal doses of these earth salts are
incontestably curative. The parents had first undergone a gradual impairment of
health because of calcareous matters to excess in their general conditions of
sustenance; and the lime proves potent to cure in the offspring what, through the
parental surfeit, was entailed as [xvii] a heritage of disease. Just in the same way
the mineral waters of Missisquoi, and Bethesda, in America, through containing
siliceous qualities so sublimated as almost to defy the analyst, are effective to
cure cancer, albuminuria, and other organic complaints.

Nor is this by any means a new policy of cure. Its barbaric practice has long
since obtained, even in African wilds, where the native snake doctor inoculates
with his prepared snake poison to save the life of a victim otherwise fatally
bitten by another snake of the same deadly virus. To Ovid, of Roman fame (20
B.C.), the same sanative axiom was also indisputably known as we learn from
his lines:—