Gentians and Nightshades 203sively Scottish has been the use of a decoction of the root for easing the pain
of a stomach ulcer in the Highlands,^97 the plant’s application as a poultice to
the sores of scrofula in Orkney^98 and to those caused on the necks of fisher-
men in the Highlands by the friction of nets and ropes,^99 and a conviction in
Lewis that the ribbed side of the leaf was good for drawing pus from a septic
wound and the smooth side for healing it^100 (a property elsewhere ascribed
to the leaves of other species, in particular, plantains).
The Irish pattern is broadly similar. Records of the use of bogbean,
though, come largely from Ulster, showing a marked concentration in Done-
gal,^101 where in one area every household used to collect the roots in spring,
‘when the blood gets out of order’, and boil them with treacle and sulphur^102 ;
and as in Britain that reputation for cleansing the system has extended to the
clearing up of boils and skin troubles (Londonderry,^103 Donegal,^104 Louth,^105
Clare,^106 Limerick^107 ) and assisting the digestion (Antrim,^108 Louth^109 ). Sim-
ilarly, as an ‘astringent’ it has been valued for stomach upsets (Leitrim,^110
Roscommon,^111 Kerr y^112 ) though held to have the reverse effect in Tyrone^113
by ending constipation, while in Clare^114 and Cork^115 it is not clear in what
way it assisted ‘liver trouble’ or how it cured jaundice in Wicklow.^116 One dif-
ference from England and especially Scotland, on the other hand, has been
the wide valuing of bogbean juice for rheumatism and allied afflictions, the
Irish records for which match the Welsh ones in the number of counties from
which they have been traced—with an Ulster-tilted distribution in this case,
too. More extremely, Ireland has a wider scatter of records than Wales of use
for kidney trouble (Cavan,^117 Monaghan,^118 Clare,^119 Limerick,^120 Cork^121 )
just as it greatly outstrips England and Wales in the extent to which the plant
has been applied to the heavier kinds of coughs and colds (Donegal,^122
Cavan,^123 Louth,^124 Sligo,^125 Mayo^126 ). But in heart disease (Mayo^127 ) and its
relation, dropsy (Louth^128 ), Ireland’s seeming lead is but a bare one.
Notes
- Britten & Holland
- Vickery 1995
- Shaw, 50
- Beith
- Barbour
- Taylor 1901, unpag.
- Hodgson, 209
- Beith
9. Moore 1898; Fargher - Williams MS
- Grant
- McDonald, 239; Carmichael, vi, 123
- McDonald, 239; Carmichael, vi, 123
- Majno
- IFC S 657: 217, 248
- Purdon