In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost."
Of the thousand and one plants used in popular folk-medicine we can
but give a few illustrations, so numerous are these old cures for the ills to
which flesh is heir. Thus, for deafness, the juice of onion has been long
recommended, and for chilblains, a Derbyshire cure is to thrash them
with holly, while in some places the juice of the leek mixed with cream is
held in repute. To exterminate warts a host of plants have been
recommended; the juice of the dandelion being in favour in the Midland
counties, whereas in the North, one has but to hang a snail on a thorn,
and as the poor creature wastes away the warts will disappear. In
Leicestershire the ash is employed, and in many places the elder is
considered efficacious. Another old remedy is to prick the wart with a
gooseberry thorn passed through a wedding-ring; and according to a
Cornish belief, the first blackberry seen will banish warts. Watercress
laid against warts was formerly said to drive them away. A rustic
specific for whooping-cough in Hampshire is to drink new milk out of a
cup made of the variegated holly; while in Sussex the excrescence found
on the briar, and popularly known as "robin red-breast's cushion," is in
demand. In consumption and diseases of the lungs, St. Fabian's nettle,
the crocus, the betony, and horehound, have long been in request, and
sea-southern-wood or mugwort, occasionally corrupted into "muggons,"
was once a favourite prescription in Scotland. A charming girl, whom
consumption had brought to the brink of the grave, was lamented by her
lover, whereupon a good-natured mermaid sang to him:--
"Wad ye let the bonnie May die in your hand,
And the mugwort flowering i' the land?"
Thereupon, tradition says, he administered the juice of this life-giving
plant to his fair lady-love, who "arose and blessed the bestower for the
return of health." Water in which peas have been boiled is given for
measles, and a Lincolnshire recipe for cramp is cork worn on the person.
A popular cure for ringworm in Scotland is a decoction of sun-spurge
(Euphorbia helioscopia), or, as it is locally termed, "mare's milk." In the
West of England to bite the first fern seen in spring is an antidote for
toothache, and in certain parts of Scotland the root of the yellow iris
chopped up and chewed is said to afford relief. Some, again, recommend
a double hazel-nut to be carried in the pocket, [22] and the elder, as a
Danish cure, has already been noticed.
Various plants were, in days gone by, used for the bites of mad dogs
and to cure hydrophobia. Angelica, madworts, and several forms of
lichens were favourite remedies. The root of balaustrium, with storax,
cypress-nuts, soot, olive-oil, and wine was the receipt, according to