The Botanist's Companion Part 16

280. TANACETUM vulgare. TANSY. Herb. E. D.--Considered as a medicine, it is a moderately warm bitter, accompanied with a strong, not very disagreeable flavour. Some have had a great opinion of it in hysteric disorders, particularly those proceeding from a deficiency or suppression of the usual course of nature.

281. TEUCRIUM Marum. CAT THYME. Herb. D.--The leaves have an aromatic bitterish taste; and, when rubbed betwixt the fingers, a quick pungent smell, which soon affects the head, and occasions sneezing: distilled with water, they yield a very acrid, penetrating essential oil, resembling one obtained by the same means from scurvy-gra.s.s. These qualities sufficiently point out the uses to which this plant might be applied; at present, it is little otherwise employed than in cephalic snuffs.

282. TEUCRIUM Chamaedrys. GERMANDER. Herb. D.--The leaves, tops, and seeds, have a bitter taste, with some degree of astringency and aromatic flavour. They were recommended as sudorific, diuretic, and emmenagogue, and for strengthening the stomach and viscera in general. With some they have been in great esteem in intermittent fevers; as also in scrophulous and other chronic disorders.

283. TORMENTILLA erecta. TORMENTIL, or UPRIGHT SEPTFOIL. Root. L. E. D.

--The root is the only part of this plant which is used medicinally; it has a strong styptic taste, but imparts no peculiar sapid flavour. This has been long held in great estimation as an astringent. Dr. Cullen has used it with gentian with great effect in intermittent fevers. Lewis recommends an ounce and a half of the powdered root to be boiled in three pints of water to a quart, adding towards the end of the boiling a dram of cinnamon. Of the strained liquor, sweetened with an ounce of any agreeable syrup, two ounces or more may be taken four or five times a-day.

284. TUSSILAGO Farfara. COLTSFOOT. Herb. L. E. D.--Tussilago stands recommended in coughs and other disorders of the breast and lungs: the flowers were an ingredient in the pectoral decoction of the Edinburgh Pharmacopoeia.

285. VALERIANA officinalis. VALERIAN. Root. L. E. D.--Valerian is a medicine of great use in nervous disorders, and is particularly serviceable in epilepsies proceeding from a debility in the nervous system. It was first brought into esteem in these cases by Fabius Columna, who by taking the powdered root, in the dose of half a spoonful, was cured of an inveterate epilepsy after many other medicines had been tried in vain. Repeated experience has since confirmed its efficacy in this disorder; and the present practice lays considerable stress upon it.

286. VERATRUM alb.u.m. WHITE h.e.l.lEBORE. Root. L. E. D.-The root has a nauseous, bitterish, acrid taste, burning the mouth and fauces: wounded when fresh, it emits an extremely acrimonious juice, which mixed with the blood, by a wound, is said to prove very dangerous: the powder of the dry root, applied to an issue, occasions violent purging: snuffed up the nose, it proves a strong, and not always a safe, sternutatory. This root, taken internally, acts with extreme violence as an emetic, and has been observed, even in a small dose, to occasion convulsions and other terrible disorders. The ancients sometimes employed it in very obstinate cases, and always made this their last resource.

Similar Plant.--Gentiana lutea, which see.

287. VERONICA Beccabunga. BROOKLIME. Herb. L. D.--This plant was formerly considered of great use in several diseases, and was applied externally to wounds and ulcers; but if it have any peculiar efficacy, it is to be derived from its antis...o...b..tic virtue.

As a mild refrigerant juice, it is preferred where an acrimonious state of the fluids prevails, indicated by prurient eruptions upon the skin, or in what has been called the hot scurvy.--Woodville's Med. Bot. 364.

288. VITIS vinifera. GRAPE VINE. Raisins and different Wines. L. E.-- These are to cheer the spirits, warm the habit, promote perspiration, render the vessels full and turgid, raise the pulse, and quicken the circulation. The effects of the full-bodied wines are much more durable than those of the thinner; all sweet wines, as Canary, abound with a glutinous nutritious substance; whilst the others are not nutrimental, or only accidentally so by strengthening the organs employed in digestion: sweet wines in general do not pa.s.s off freely by urine, and heat the const.i.tution more than an equal quant.i.ty of any other, though containing full as much spirit: red port, and most of the red wines, have an astringent quality, by which they strengthen the tone of the stomach and intestines, and thus prove serviceable for restraining immoderate secretions: those which are of an acid nature, as Renish, pa.s.s freely by the kidneys, and gently loosen the belly: it is supposed that these last exasperate, or occasion gout and calculous disorders, and that new wines of every kind have this effect.

The ripe fruit of grapes, of which there are several kinds, properly cured and dried, are the raisins and currants of the shops: the juice of these also, by fermentation, affords wine as well as vinegar and tartar.

The medical use of raisins is, their imparting a very pleasant flavour both to aqueous and spiritous menstrua. The seeds or stones are supposed to give a disagreeable relish, and hence are generally directed to be taken out: nevertheless I have not found that they have any disagreeable taste.--Lewis's Mat. Med.

289. ULMUS campestris. ELM. Bark. L. E. D.--The leaves have a bitterish astringent taste, and are recommended in powder, to the extent of at least two drams a-day, in ulcerations of the urinary pa.s.sages and catarrhus vesicae. The powder has been used with opium, the latter being gradually increased to a considerable quant.i.ty, in diabetes, and it is said with advantage. Some use it for alleviating the dyspeptic symptoms in nephritic calculous ailments.--Lewis's Mat. Med.

290. RHODODENDRON Chrysanthemum. YELLOW-FLOWERED RHO-DODENDRON. E. The Leaves.--This species of Rhododendron has lately been introduced into Britain: it is a native of Siberia, affecting mountainous situations, and flowering in June and July.

Little attention was paid to this remedy till the year 1779, when it was strongly recommended by Koelpin as an efficacious medicine, not only in rheumatism and gout, but even in venereal cases; and it is now very generally employed in chronic rheumatisms in various parts of Europe.

The leaves, which are the part directed for medicinal use, have a bitterish subastringent taste, and, as well as the bark and young branches, manifest a degree of acrimony. Taken in large doses they prove a narcotic poison, producing those symptoms which we have described as occasioned by many of the order Solanaceae.

Dr. Home, who tried it unsuccessfully in some cases of acute rheumatism, says, it appears to be one of the most powerful sedatives which we have, as in most of the trials it made the pulse remarkably slow, and, in one patient, reduced it 38 beats. And in other cases in which the Rhododendron has been used at Edinburgh, it has been productive of good effects; and, accordingly, it is now introduced into the Edinburgh Pharmacopoeia.

The manner of using this plant by the Siberians was, by putting two drams of the dried leaves in an earthen-pot with about ten ounces of boiling-water, keeping it near a boiling heat for a night, and this they took in the morning; and by repeating it three or four times it generally affected a cure. It is said to occasion heat, thirst, a degree of delirium, and a peculiar sensation of the parts affected.-- Woodville's Med. Bot. p. 239.

SECT. VIII.--MEDICINAL PLANTS not contained in either of the BRITISH DISPENSATORIES.

For the use of the Medical Student I selected in the foregoing section such plants as are contained in the Pharmacopoeias of the present day: but there are many mentioned in Woodville's Medical Botany, Lewis's Dispensatory, &c. which, although discarded from the College list, are nevertheless still used by medical pract.i.tioners and others.

It would be difficult to give a full history of all the plants that have from time to time been recommended for medical uses. The old writers, as Gerard, Parkinson, Lyte, &c. attributed medical virtues to all the plants which came under their notice; and, on the other hand, as we observed above, the vegetable department of the Pharmacopoeias has from time to time been reduced so much, that, if we had confined ourselves to that alone, we fear our little treatise on this head would, by many persons, be thought defective. The following list is therefore given, as containing what are used, though probably not so much by pract.i.tioners in medicine, as by our good housewives in the country, who, without disparagement to medical science, often relieve the distresses of their families and neighbours by the judicious application of drugs of this nature, and many of which are also sold for the same purposes in the London herb-shops.

291. ACANTHUS mollis. SMOOTH BEARS-BREECH. The Leaves.--Are of a soft sweetish taste, and abound with a mucilaginous juice: its virtues do not seem to differ from those of Althea and other mucilaginous plants.

292. ACHILLA Ptarmica. SNEEZEWORT. The Root.--The roots have and acrid smell, and a hot biting taste: chewed, they occasion a plentiful discharge of saliva; and when powdered and snuffed up the nose, provoke sneezing. These are sold at the herb-shops as a subst.i.tute for pellitory of Spain.

293. ACHILLEA Ageratum. MAUDLIN. The Leaves and Flowers.--This has a light agreeable smell; and a roughish, somewhat warm and bitterish taste. These qualities point out its use as a mild corroborant; but it has long been a stranger in practice, and is now omitted both by the London and Edinburgh Colleges. It is however in use by the common people.

294. ACHILLEA Millefolium. YARROW. The Leaves.--The leaves have a rough bitterish taste, and a faint aromatic smell. Their virtues are those of a very mild astringent, and as such they stand recommended in haemorrhages both internal and external, diarrhoeas, debility and laxity of the fibres; and likewise in spasmodic hysterical affections.

295. AJUGA reptans. BUGLE. The Leaves.--These have at first a sweetish taste, which gradually becomes bitterish and roughish. They are recommended as vulnerary medicines, and in all cases where mild astringents or corroborants are proper.

296. ALCHEMILLA vulgaris. LADY'S MANTLE. The Leaves.--These discover to the taste a moderate astringency, and were formerly much esteemed in some female weaknesses, and in fluxes of the belly. They are now rarely made use of; though both the fresh leaves and roots might doubtless be of service in cases where mild astringents are required.