CHAPTER XXI.
PLANTS IN FOLK-MEDICINE.
From the earliest times plants have been most extensively used in the
cure of disease, although in days of old it was not so much their inherent
medicinal properties which brought them into repute as their supposed
magical virtues. Oftentimes, in truth, the only merit of a plant lay in the
charm formula attached to it, the due utterance of which ensured relief
to the patient. Originally there can be no doubt that such verbal forms
were prayers, "since dwindled into mystic sentences." [1] Again, before a
plant could work its healing powers, due regard had to be paid to the
planet under whose influence it was supposed to be; [2] for Aubrey
mentions an old belief that if a plant "be not gathered according to the
rules of astrology, it hath little or no virtue in it." Hence, in accordance
with this notion, we find numerous directions for the cutting and
preparing of certain plants for medicinal purposes, a curious list of
which occurs in Culpepper's "British Herbal and Family Physician." This
old herbalist, who was a strong believer in astrology, tells us that such as
are of this way of thinking, and none else, are fit to be physicians. But he
was not the only one who had strict views on this matter, as the
literature of his day proves--astrology, too, having held a prominent
place in most of the gardening books of the same period. Michael
Drayton, who has chronicled so many of the credulities of his time,
referring to the longevity of antediluvian men, writes:--
"Besides, in medicine, simples had the power That none need then
the planetary hour To help their workinge, they so juiceful were."
The adder's-tongue, if plucked during the wane of the moon, was a
cure for tumours, and there is a Swabian belief that one, "who on Friday
of the full moon pulls up the amaranth by the root, and folding it in a
white cloth, wears it against his naked breast, will be made bullet-proof."
[3] Consumptive patients, in olden times, were three times passed,
"Through a circular wreath of woodbine, cut during the increase of the
March moon, and let down over the body from head to foot." [4] In
France, too, at the present day, the vervain is gathered under the
different changes of the moon, with secret incantations, after which it is
said to possess remarkable curative properties.
In Cornwall, the club-moss, if properly gathered, is considered "good
against all diseases of the eye." The mode of procedure is this:--"On the
third day of the moon, when the thin crescent is seen for the first time,
show it the knife with which the moss is to be cut, and repeat this
formula:--