between any of the other uses of burdock recorded from Britain: for jaundice
(South Uist in the Outer Hebrides^10 ), urinary complaints (Berwickshire^11 ),
inflammatory tumours (‘much in use amongst the country people’ for those,
according to John Quincy in 1718^12 ), allaying nervousness (Isle of Man^13 )
and, by application of a poultice of the bruised leaves to the soles of the feet,
such other conditions as epilepsy, hysteria and convulsions (the ‘west of Eng-
land’^14 and other (?) unspecified rural areas^15 ).
In Ireland the plant’s predominance as a cleansing herb has been particu-
larly pronounced, with a bunching of records in Leinster. Otherwise, as in
Britain, its applications have been very various and some of them different
ones: for instance, for burns (Meath,^16 Wicklow^17 ), cuts (Cavan^18 ), flatulence
(Donegal^19 ) and to poultice boils (Sligo^20 ). An ancient Irish remedy for scro-
fula,^21 the glandular swellings it has more recently been deployed against,^22
may be the same as Quincy’s inflammatory tumours, however. And Ireland
has shared with Britain that same special cure for convulsions (Louth^23 ) as
well as the uses for nervousness (Meath^24 ), jaundice (Donegal^25 ), rheumatism
(Londonderry,^26 Cavan,^27 Limerick^28 ), colds and respiratory trouble (Cavan,^29
Mayo^30 ) and, as a powerful diuretic, dropsy and kidney and urinary com-
plaints (Ulster,^31 Cavan,^32 Wicklow^33 ).
Cirsium arvense (Linnaeus) Scopoli
creeping thistle
Eurasia, North Africa; introduced into North America, Australasia
Silybum marianum (Linnaeus) Gaertner
milk thistle, blessed thistle, lady’s thistle, speckled thistle
southern Europe, south-western Asia, North Africa; introduced into
western and central Europe, North and South America, Australasia
Because of the vagueness with which the name thistle has been applied in
folk medicine, it is difficult in most cases to be at all sure to which particular
species any one record relates. Any valued for a milky juice applied as a wart
cure (sometimes known as ‘milk thistle’, ‘soft thistle’ or ‘soft white thistle’) is
almost certainly one of the sow-thistles (Sonchus spp.), and all records for
that use are therefore listed under that genus. One or more other kinds seem
to have been well known as a specific for whooping cough, boiled in new
milk, just in one tight group of counties in the north-eastern corner of what
is now the Irish Republic: Cavan,^34 Monaghan^35 and above all Louth.^36
Though recorded under some names which could refer to various species,
such as ‘larger kind of thistle’, ‘white thistle’, ‘crisp thistle’ and ‘bracket thistle’,
282 Arctium