198 Hyoscyamus niger
ration once used in that country is said to have had a reputation for curing
any mental trouble.^40 But the main function in folk medicine at least in more
recent centuries has evidently been as a painkiller: relieving the pain of
inflamed wounds and stomach-ache in Sussex,^41 but there and elsewhere
(Kent (?),^42 Hertfordshire,^43 Norfolk^44 ) toothache, too. A special practice in
this last connection was the stringing of a necklace of beads cut from a hen-
bane root round the neck of a teething infant. Though the only records traced
of that are from Devon^45 and Sussex,^46 the dried berries of ‘nightshade’ have
been used for the same purpose in Norfolk,^47 and other plants such as elder
in Warwickshire and Gloucestershire have been drawn on for these neck-
laces, too; ‘Verona root’, made from imported orris (Iris ×germanica Linnaeus
or allied taxa), was even sold for them by herbalists, ready-made, at one
period. What were regarded as the most potent parts of these plants and cer-
tain other members of the Solanaceae had the reputation of giving off fumes
with a sedative effect. It was because of that effect that henbane was also given
to women in childbirth, to bring relief in the form of ‘twilight sleep’, a prac-
tice on record from Wiltshire^48 but probably quite widespread.
It may have been primarily for this last reason that an infusion of the
leaves has been given to children with whooping cough in Cavan, the county
from which the only other Irish use traced, the drinking of the juice ‘for the
nerves’, has been recorded as well.^49
Solanum dulcamara Linnaeus
bittersweet, woody nightshade
Eurasia, North Africa; introduced into North America,
New Zealand
Solanum dulcamara shares with other members of the Solanaceae alkaloids
which affect the nervous system to a potentially dangerous degree, but instead
of being used like henbane (Hyoscyamus niger) to treat mental disorders, its
function in folk medicine in that particular direction appears to have been
restricted to serving as a sedative to counter sleeplessness, as implied by one
of its Gaelic names in Ireland^50 (and actually recorded as a use from Cavan^51 ).
In common with periwinkles (Vinca), the plant has a mildly narcotic prop-
erty, and at one time in Cumberland schoolboys kept a stock of the twigs in
their pockets and copied the tobacco chewing of their elders.^52
The main use of this common plant, though, was for fingers inflamed by
the cold. ‘Divers countrie people doe use the berries bruised and laid to the
finger that hath a felon thereon to cure it’, wrote John Parkinson in the sev-