under the name ‘touch-and-heal’ and was employed ‘to prevent a mark’ more
especially.
Hypericum perforatum Linnaeus; and other species:H. tetrapterum
Fries,H. humifusum Linnaeus,H. pulchrum Linnaeus,H. elodes
Linnaeus
St John’s-wort
Europe, western Asia, North Africa, Macaronesia; introduced into
Australasia, North America
In contrast to tutsan (Hypericum androsaemum), which is sufficiently differ-
ent in appearance to have probably always enjoyed a place of its own in folk
medicine, the five other species of the genus Hypericum that have been iden-
tified botanically as in use in Britain or Ireland are on record for such broadly
similar purposes as to suggest that no distinction has been made between
them. They are therefore treated here as if they constituted a single entity. It
is nevertheless worth noting that whereas ‘St John’s-wort’ over much of low-
land England is H. perforatum,in the regions to the north and west that name
is borne largely or wholly by its more slender relation,H. pulchrum.The
magico-religious status accorded to the latter has been in no way inferior and
may in those regions antedate the arrival of Christianity which was respon-
sible for the association of these plants with St John.^6 Though the range of
ailments for which H. pulchrum is on record as having been used is consid-
erably smaller, that may merely reflect the much greater exposure H. perfora-
tum has had over the centuries to the learned tradition.
The principal cluster of applications that St John’s wort—in the collective
sense—has had as a folk herb has arisen from its astringency and its resulting
power to staunch bleeding from scratches and more serious wounds.Hyperi-
cum perforatumhas been employed for these purposes in Somerset^7 and Kent,^8
andH. pulchrumin the Isle of Man^9 and the Highlands (in Glen Roy under a
Gaelic name translating as bloodwort).^10 Inthe Isle of Man,H. pulchrumhas
also shared withH. humifusumarole in curing stomach upsets, the name
lusni-chiolg,‘intestine herb’, having been applied to both alike.^11 Aninfusion
of ‘St John’s-wort’ (species unstated) has also served as an old rustic remedy,
in an unidentified part of England, for enuresis in children or the aged.^12
Curiously, the property of St John’s-wort which has lately won it much
publicity, its mild antidepressant action, features very little in the folk records
of the British Isles—seemingly only in the Isle of Man, where Hypericum pul-
chrum has been widely in use for low spirits, nervousness^13 and as a general
tonic,^14 and in the Highlands, where the herb was allegedly used by St
104 Hypericum androsaemum