nese physician Anton Storck, which despite much scepticism in higher med-
ical circles in Britain following ambiguous reports of its efficacy (suspected
by William Withering to have resulted at least in part from using the wrong
plant^88 ) led to some percolating of the remedy downwards. Though the
orthodox treatment took the form of swallowing pills made from a decoction
of the leaves, a blacksmith in Cornwall is on record as having believed he had
cured himself of a cancer by drinking immense quantities just of the juice
over a period of three years.^89 The normal practice in folk medicine, however,
seems to have been the less daring one of poulticing external cancers with
the leaves (as in Suffolk^90 and Angus^91 ), which was merely a version of the
hemlock poultice in widespread use for sores and swelling more generally
(as in Cambridgeshire,^92 Berwickshire^93 and the Isle of Man^94 ). In the Isle of
Man^95 and the Highlands,^96 though, cases of a drastic and much more painful
alternative are known that involved extracting a tumour by its roots by means
of a plaster—provided that was done at an early stage. It was no doubt the
plant’s particular virulence that also caused it to be combined with penny-
royal (Mentha pulegium) and rue (the wholly cultivated Ruta graveolens Lin-
naeus) in a pill given at one time in the Cambridgeshire Fens for the purpose
of inducing abortions.^97
In Ireland, on the other hand, though hemlock poultices have been sim-
ilarly in widespread use, especially in the north of the country,^98 for treating
swellings and bad sores of all kinds, no records have been traced of their being
applied to cancers. They have, however, been valued there additionally for
rheumatism (Wicklow^99 ), burns (Kilkenny,^100 Limerick^101 ) and—unless
‘hemlock’ in this case refers to hogweed—wounds.^102 Quite unrelated to any
of the foregoing, though, has been the reputation the plant has enjoyed in
certain (unspecified) parts of Ireland as a means of curing giddiness.^103
Apium graveolens Linnaeus
wild celery, smallage
central and southern Europe, southern Asia, North and South Africa,
South America; introduced into other temperate regions
In Ireland the exceptional quantity in which the mainly scarce Apium grave-
olens of coastal marshes occurs in Co. Dublin has earned it a particularly
wide and various use in that county as a medicine: above all for ‘felons’ and
rashes,^104 but also for rheumatism,^105 boils^106 and for cleansing the blood of
impurities.^107 It has also been favoured for rheumatism in Wicklow^108 next
door. Similarly, its presence round the Shannon mouth has allowed it to be
188 Conium maculatum