Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure

897 Pages·2012·2.27 MB·English

by  William Thomas Fernie

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Modern Uses of Cure, by William Thomas Fernie
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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
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK
HERBAL SIMPLES APPROVED FOR MODERN 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 quâ
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 changé 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,