allegedly sometimes employed for dropsy and rheumatic pains in the early
nineteenth century.^67 All the evidence seems to indicate that this was late,
book-derived medicine.
Viburnum lantana Linnaeus
wayfaring-tree
central and southern Europe, northern Asia Minor, north-western
Africa; introduced into North America
There is one Suffolk record of the leaves ofViburnum lantana being used for
making ‘an excellent gargle’.^68
Lonicera periclymenum Linnaeus
honeysuckle
western and central Europe, Morocco; introduced into
North America
In a somewhat ambiguous statement, probably rightly interpreted by a later
author^69 as referring to ‘the common people’ of England, John Parkinson^70
poured scorn on a deep-rooted practice of employing the leaves and flowers
ofLonicera periclymenum for gargles and for lotions for inflammations of
the mouth or ‘the privy parts of men and women’. By these he clearly meant
that fungus infection known as thrush, which most characteristically attacks
the lining of the mouth and tongue, especially in infants, or the vagina, espe-
cially in pregnancy. And this is in fact the ailment which features in the folk
records as the one for which honeysuckle has, by a small margin, been most
widely used—though those records are Irish exclusively (from Sligo,^71 the
Aran Islands,^72 Wicklow^73 and Wexford,^74 on the assumption that ‘sore
mouth’ in two of those counties refers to this; on the other hand ‘a cold bro-
ken out on the lips’, recorded from Monaghan,^75 sounds more like herpes).
Some of the other uses recorded in Ireland echo those of the elder tree:
jaundice in Cavan^76 and (especially) Leitrim,^77 consumption or whooping
cough—mixed with other herbs—in Wicklow^78 and Cork,^79 burns in Louth^80
and erysipelas in Donegal.^81
The many fewer British records are partly for similar complaints: asthma
and/or bronchitis in Norfolk^82 and the Highlands^83 is clearly similar to the
Irish remedy for coughs, and an infusion drunk to cure a headache in those
same two areas^84 is no doubt cognate; but the same cannot be said of the
emergency remedy for adder bites in Devon,^85 the cure for stings in Hamp-
shire^86 or the wash for removing freckles or soothing sunburn known from
the Highlands.^87
Bedstraws, Valerian and Scabious 273