Part 43
The fruit of the _Carduus marianus_ contains an oily bitter seed: the tender leaves in spring may be eaten as a salad; and the young peeled stalks, after being soaked, are excellent boiled, or baked in pies. The heads of this Thistle before the flowers open may be [557] cooked like artichokes. The seeds were formerly thought to cure hydrophobia. They act as a demulcent in catarrh and pleurisy, being also a favourite food of Goldfinches. A decoction of the seeds when applied externally is said to have proved beneficial in cases of cancer.
Thistle down was at one time gathered by poor persons and sold for stuffing pillows. It is very prolific in germination, and an old saying runs on this score:--
"Cut your Thistles before St. John, Or you'll have two instead of one."
This Milk Thistle (_Carduus marianus_) is said to be the empirical nostrum, _anti-glaireux_, of Count Mattaei.
"Disarmed of its prickles," writes John Evelyn, "and boiled, it is worth esteem, and thought to be a great breeder of milk, and proper diet for women who are nurses."
In Germany it is very popular for curing jaundice and kindred biliary derangements. When taken by healthy provers in varying quantities to test its toxic effects the plant has caused distension of the whole abdomen, especially on the right side, with tenderness on pressure over the liver, and with a deficiency of bile in hard knotty stools, the colouring matter of the faeces being found by chemical tests present in the urine: so that a preparation of this Thistle modified in strength, and considerably diluted in its doses proves truly homoeopathic to simple obstructive jaundice through inaction of the liver, and readily cures the disorder. A tincture is prepared (H.) for medicinal use from equal parts of the root, and the seeds (with the hull on) together with spirit of wine.
The _Carduus benedictus_ (Blessed Thistle) was first [558] cultivated by Gerard in 1597, and has since become a common medicinal Simple. It was at one time considered to be almost a panacea, and capable of curing even the plague by its antiseptic virtues.
This Thistle was a herb of Mars, and, as Gerard says: "It helpeth giddiness of the head: also it is an excellent remedy against the yellow jaundice. It strengthens the memory, cures deafness, and helps the bitings of mad dogs and venomous beasts." It contains a bitter principle "cnicin," resembling the similar tonic constituent of the Dandelion, this being likewise useful for stimulating a sluggish liver to more healthy action.
The infusion should be made with cold water: when kept it forms a salt on its surface like nitre. The herb does not yield its virtues to spirit of wine as a tincture. Its taste is intensely bitter.
The Carline Thistle (_Carlina vulgaris_) was formerly used in magical incantations. It possesses medicinal qualities very like those of Elecampane, being diaphoretic, and in larger doses purgative. The herb contains some resin, and a volatile essential oil of a camphoraceous nature, like that of Elecampane, and useful for similar purposes, as cordial and antiseptic. This Thistle grows on dry heaths especially near the sea, and is easily distinguished from other Thistles by the straw-coloured glossy radiate long inner scales of its outer floral cup. They rise up over the florets in wet weather. The whole plant is very durable, like that of the "everlasting flowers:" Cudweed (_Antennaria_).
The name Carlina was given because the Thistle was used by Charles the Great as a remedy against the plague. It was revealed to him when praying for some means to stay this pestilence which was destroying his army. In his sleep there appeared to him an angel who shot [559] an arrow from a cross bow, telling him to mark the plant upon which it fell: for that with such plant he might cure his soldiers of the dire epidemic: which event really happened, the herb thus indicated being the said thistle. In Anglo-Saxon it was the ever-throat, or boar-throat.
On the Continent a large white blossom of this species is nailed upon cottage doors by way of a barometer to indicate the weather if remaining open or closing.
The wild Teasel (_Dipsacus sylvestris_) grows commonly in waste places, having tall stems or stalks, at the bottom of which are leaves (like bracts) united at their sides so as to form a cup, open upwards, around the base of the stalk, and hence the term "_Dipsacus_," thirsty. This cup serves to retain rain water, which is thought to acquire curative properties, being used, for one purpose, to remove warts. The cup is called Venus' basin, and its contents, says Ray, are of service _ad verrucas abigendas_; also it is named Barber's Brush, and Church Broom.
The Fuller's Teasel, or Thistle (_Dipsacus fullonum_) is so termed from its use in combing and dressing cloth,--_teasan_, to tease,-- three Teaselheads being the arms of the Cloth Weavers' Company. This is found in the neighbourhood of the cloth districts, but is not considered to be a British plant. It is probably a cultivated variety of the wild Teasel, but differs by having the bristles of its receptacles hooked.
The Sow Thistle (_Sonchus oleraceus_), named _sonchus_ because of its soft spikes instead of prickles, grows commonly as a weed in gardens, and having milky stalks which are reputed good for wheezy and short-winded folk, whilst the milk may be used as a wash for the face. It is named also "turn sole" because always facing the sun, and Hare's Thistle (the hare's panacea, [560] says an old writer, is the Sow Thistle), or Hare's Lettuce because "when fainting with the heat she recruits her strength with the herb; or if a hare eat of this herb in the summer when he is mad he shall become whole." Another similar title of the herb is Hare's palace, since the creature was thought to get shelter and courage from it. Some suppose that the botanical term _Sonchus_ signifies _apo ton soon ekein_, from its yielding a salubrious juice.
The Sow thistle has been named also Milkweed. According to tradition it sometimes conceals marvels, or treasures; and in Italian stories the words, "Open Sow Thistle" are used as of like significance with the magical invocation "Open sesame." Another name is "Du Tistel" or Sprout Thistle; because the plant may be used for its edible sprouts, which Evelyn says, were eaten by Galen as a lettuce. And Matthiolus told of the Tuscans in his day "_Soncho nostri utuntur hyeme in acetariis_."
The Melancholy Thistle (_Carduus heterophyllus_) has been held curative of melancholy. It grows most frequently in Scotland and the North of England, and is a non-prickly plant.
THYME.
The Wild English thyme (_Thymus serpyllum_) belongs to the Labiate plants, and takes its second title from a Greek verb signifying "to creep," which has reference to the procumbent habit of the plant. It bears the appellation "Brotherwort."
Typically the _Thymus serpyllum_ flourishes abundantly on hills, heaths, and grassy places, having woody stems, small fringed leaves, and heads of purple flowers which diffuse a sweet perfume into the surrounding air, [561] especially in hot weather. Shakespeare's well known line alludes to this pleasant fact: "I know a bank where the wild Thyme grows."
The name Thyme is derived from the Greek _thumos_, as identical with the Latin _fumus_, smoke, having reference to the ancient use of Thyme in sacrifices, because of its fragrant odour; or, it may be, as signifying courage (_thumos_), which its cordial qualities inspire. With the Greeks Thyme was an emblem of bravery, and activity; also the ladies of chivalrous days embroidered on the scarves which they presented to their knights the device of a bee hovering about a spray of Thyme, as teaching the union of the amiable and the active.
Horace has said concerning Wild Thyme:--
"Impune tutum per nemus arbutos Quaerunt latentes, et thyma deviae Olentis uxores mariti."
Wild Thyme is subject to variations in the size and colour of its flowers, as well as in the habits of the varieties.
This wild Thyme bears also the appellation, "Mother of Thyme," which should be "Mother Thyme," in allusion to its medicinal influence on the womb, an organ which the older writers always termed the "Mother." Isidore tells that the wild Thyme was called in Latin, _Matris animula, quod menstrua movet_. Platearius says of it: _Serpyllum matricem comfortat et mundificat. Mulieres Saliternitanoe hoc fomento multum utuntur_.
Dr. Neovius writes enthusiastically in a Finnish Journal on the virtues of common Thyme in combating whooping cough. He has found that if given _fresh_, from an ounce and a half to six ounces a day, mixed [562] with a little syrup, regularly for some weeks, it is practically a specific. If taken from the first, the symptoms vanish in two or three days, and in a fortnight the disease is expelled. The simplicity, harmlessness, and cheapness of this remedy are great supporters of its claims.
Other titles of the herb are Pulial mountain, and creeping Thyme. It is anti-spasmodic, and good for nervous or hysterical headaches, for flatulence, and the headache which follows inebriation. The infusion may be profitably applied for healing skin eruptions of various characters.
Virgil mentions (in _Eclogue_ xi., lines 10, 11) the restorative value of Thyme against fatigue:--
"Thestylis et rapido fessis messoribus oestu Allia, Serpyllumque herbas contundit olentes."
Or,
"Thestlis for mowers tired with parching heat Garlic and Thyme, strong smelling herbs, doth beat."
Tournefort writes: "A conserve made from the flowers and leaves of wild Thyme (_Serpyllum_) relieves those troubled with the falling sickness, whilst the distilled oil promotes the monthly flow in women."
The delicious flavour of the noted honey of Hymettus was said to be derived from the wild Thyme there visited by the bees. Likewise the flesh of sheep fed on pasturage where the wild Thyme grows freely has been said to gain a delicate flavour and taste from this source: but herein a mistake is committed, because sheep are really averse to such pasturage, and refuse it if they can get other food.
An infusion of the leaves of Thyme, whether wild, or cultivated, makes an excellent aromatic tea, the odour of which is sweet and fragrant, whilst the taste of the [563] plant is bitter and camphoraceous. There is in some districts an old superstition that to bring wild Thyme into the house conveys severe illness, or death to some member of the family.
In Grecian days the Attic elegance of style was said to show an odour of Thyme. Shenstone's schoolmistress had a garden:--
"Where herbs for use and physic not a few Of grey renown within those borders grew, The tufted Basil,--_pun provoking_ Thyme, The lordly Gill that never dares to climb."
Bacon in his _Essay on Gardens_ recommends to set whole alleys of Thyme for the pleasure of its perfume when treading on the plant. And Dioscorides said Thyme used in food helps dimness of sight.
Gerard adds: "Wild Thyme boiled in wine and drunk is good against the wamblings and gripings of the belly": whilst Culpeper describes it as "a strengthener of the lungs, as notable a one as grows." "The Thyme of Candy, Musk Thyme, or Garden Thyme is good against the sciatica, and to be given to those that have the falling sickness, to smell to."
The volatile essential oil of Wild Thyme (as well as of Garden Thyme) consists of two hydrocarbons, with thymol as the fatty base, this thymol being readily soluble in fats and oils when heated, and taking high modern rank as an antiseptic. It will arrest gastric fermentation when given judiciously as a medicine, though an overdose will bring on somnolence, with a ringing in the ears. Officinally Thymol, the stearoptene obtained from the volatile oil of _Thymus vulgaris_, is directed to be given in a dose of from half to two grains.
[564] Thymol is valued by some authorities more highly even than carbolic acid for destroying the germs of disease, or for disinfecting them. It is of equal service with tar for treating such skin affections as psoriasis, and eczema. When inhaled thymol is most useful against septic sore throat, especially during scarlet fever. At the hospital for throat diseases the following formula is ordered: Thymol twenty grains to rectified spirit of wine three drachms, and carbonate of magnesia ten grains, with water to three ounces; a teaspoonful to be used in a pint of water at 150 deg. Fahrenheit for each inhalation.
Against ringworm an ointment made with one drachm of thymol to an ounce of soft paraffin is found to be a sure specific.
The spirit of thymol should consist of one part of thymol to ten parts of spirit of wine; and this is a convenient form for use to medicate the wool of antiseptic respirators. As a purifying and cleansing lotion for wounds and sores, thymol should be mixed in the proportion of five grains thereof to an ounce of spirit of wine, an ounce of glycerine, and six ounces of water.
The common Garden Thyme is an imported sort from the South of Europe. Its odour and taste depend on an essential oil known commercially as oil of origanum.
Another variety of the Wild Thyme is Lemon Thyme (_Thymus citriodorus_), distinguished by its parti-coloured leaves, and by its lilac flowers. Small beds of this Thyme, together with mint, are cultivated at Penzance, in which to rear millepedes, or hoglice, administered as pills for several forms of scrofulous disease. The woodlouse, sowpig, or hoglouse abounds with a nitrous salt which has long found favour for curing scrofulous [565] disease, and inveterate struma, as also against some kinds of stone in the bladder.
The Hoglouse, or Millepede was the primitive medicinal pill. It is found in dry gardens under stones, etc., and rolls itself up into a ball when touched. These are also called Chiselbobs, and Cudworms. From three to twelve were formerly given in Rhenish wine for a hundred days together to cure all kinds of cancers; or they were sometimes worn round the neck in a small bag (which was absurd!). In the Eastern counties they are known as "Old Sows," or "St. Anthony's Hogs." Their Latin name is _Porcellus Scaber_. The Welsh call this small creature the "withered old woman of the wood," "the little pig of the wood," and "the little grey hog," also "Grammar Sows." Their word "gurach" like "grammar" means a dried up old dame.
Cat Thyme (_Teucrium marum verum_) was imported from Spain, and is cultivated in our gardens as a cordial aromatic herb, useful in nervous disorders. Its flowers are crimson, and its bark is astringent. The dried leaves may be given in powder or used in snuff. A tincture (H.) is made from the whole herb which is effectual against small thread worms. Provers of the herb in material toxic quantities have experienced troublesome itching and irritation of the fundament. For similar conditions, and to expel thread worms, two or three drops of the tincture diluted to its first decimal strength should be given with a spoonful of water three or four times in the day to a child of from four to six years.
TOADFLAX.
The Toadflax, or Flaxweed (_Linaria vulgaris_) belongs to the scrofula-curing order of plants, getting its name from _linum_, flax, and being termed "toad" by a [566] mistaken translation of its Latin title _Bubonio_, this having been wrongly read _bufonio_,-- belonging to a toad,--or because having a flower (as the Snapdragon) like a toad's mouth: whereas "bubonio" means "useful for the groins."
It is an upright herbaceous plant most common in hedges, having leaves like grass of a dull sea green aspect, and bearing dense clusters of yellow flowers shaped like those of the garden Snapdragon, with spurs at their base. It continues in flower until the late autumn. The Russians cultivate the Snapdragon for the oil yielded by its seeds.
The Toadflax has a faint disagreeable smell, and a bitter saline taste. It acts medicinally as a powerful purge, and promoter of urine, and therefore it is employed for carrying off the water of dropsies, being in this respect a well known rural Simple. Waller says: "Country people boil the whole plant in ale, and drink the decoction; but the expressed juice of the fresh plant acts still more powerfully."
In many districts the herb is familiarly known as "butter and eggs;" and in Germany though dedicated to the Virgin it is called "devil's band."
Again in Devonshire it goes by the names of "Rambling," or "Wandering Sailor," "Pedler's Basket," "Mother of Millions" (the ivy-leaved sort), "Lion's Mouth" and "Flaxweed."
When used externally an infusion of the herb acts as an anodyne to subdue irritation of the skin, and it may be taken as a medicine to modify skin diseases. The fresh juice is attractive to flies, but at the same time it serves to poison them: so if it be mixed with milk, and placed where flies resort they will drink it and perish at the first sip.
[567] As promoting a free flow of urine, the herb has been named "Urinalis," or sometimes "Ramsted." The flowers contain a yellow colouring matter, mucilage, and sugar. In Germany they are given with the rest of the plant for dropsy, jaundice, piles, and some diseases of the skin. Gerard says: "The decoction openeth the stoppings of the liver, and spleen: and is singular good against the jaundice which is of long continuance." He advises an ointment made from the plant stampt with lard for certain skin eruptions, and a decoction made with four drachms of the herb in eight ounces of boiling water. The bruised leaves are useful externally for curing blotches on the face, and for piles.
An old distich says of the Toadflax as compared with the Larkspur:--
"Esula lactescit: sine lacte Linaria crescit;"
or,
"Larkspur with milk doth flow: Toadflax without milk doth grow,"
(alluding to the dry nature of the toadflax). To which the Hereditary Marshal of Hesse added the following line:--
"Esoula nil nobis, sed dat linaria _taurum_,"
implying that the herb was of old valued for its good effects when applied externally to piles as an ointment, a fomentation, or a poultice, each being made from the leaves and the flowers. The originator of this ointment was a Dr. Wolph, physician to the Landgrave of Hesse, who only divulged its formula on the prince promising to give him _a fat ox_ annually for the discovery.
TOMATO (or LOVE APPLE).
Though only of recent introduction as a common vegetable in this country, and though grown chiefly [568] under glass for the table in England, yet the Tomato is so abundantly imported, and so extensively used by all classes now-a-days throughout the British Isles that it may fairly take consideration for whatever claims it can advance as a curative Simple. Imported early in the present century from South America it remained for a while an exclusive luxury produced for the rich like pine apples and melons. But gradually since then the Tomato has steadily acquired an increasing popularity, and now large crops of the profitable fruit are brought from Bordeaux and the Channel Islands, to meet the demands of our English markets. Much of the favour which has become attached to this ruddy, polished, attractive-looking fruit is due to a widespread impression that it is good for the liver, and a preventive of biliousness. Nevertheless, rumours have also gone abroad that habitual Tomato-eaters are especially liable to cancerous disease in this, or that organ.
Belonging to the Solanums the Tomato (_Lycopersicum_) is a plant of Mexican origin. Its brilliant fruit was first known as _Mala oethiopica_, or the Apples of the Moors, and bearing the Italian designation _Pomi dei Mori_. This name was presently corrupted in the French to _Pommes d'amour_; and thence in English to the epithet Love Apples, a perversion which shows by what curious methods primary names may become incongruously changed. They are also called Gold Apples from their bright yellow colour before getting ripe. The term _Lycopersicum_ signifies a "wolf's peach," because some parts of the plant are thought to excite animal passions.
The best fruit is supposed to grow within sight, or smell of the sea. It needs plenty of sunlight and heat. The quicker it is produced the fewer will be the seeds discoverable in its pulp.
[568] Green when young, Tomatoes acquire a bright yellow hue before reaching maturity, and when ripe they are smooth, shining, furrowed, and of a handsome red.
Chemically this Love Apple contains citric and malic acids: and it further possesses oxalic acid, or oxalate of potash, in common with the Sorrel of our fields, and the Rhubarb of our kitchen gardens. On which account each of this vegetable triad is ill suited for gouty constitutions disposed to the formation of irritating oxalate of lime in the blood. With such persons a single indulgence in Tomatoes,
## particularly when eaten raw, may provoke a sharp attack of gout.
Otherwise there are special reasons for supposing the Tomato to be a wholesome fruit of remarkable purifying value.
Dr. King Chambers classifies it among remedies against scurvy, telling us that Tomatoes mixed with brown bread make a capital sauce for costive persons. And the fruit owns a singular property in connection with diseases of plants, suggesting its probable worth as protective against bacterial germs, and microbes of disease in our bodies when it is taken as food, or medicinally. If a Tomato shrub be uprooted at the end of the summer, and allowed to wither on the bough of a fruit tree, or if it be burnt beneath the fruit tree, it will not only kill any blight which may be present, but will also preserve the tree against any future invasion by blight. The hostility thus evinced by the plant to low organisms is due to the presence of sulphur, which the Tomato shrub largely contains, and which is rendered up in an active state by decay, or by burning. Now remembering that digestion likewise splits up the Tomato into its chemical constituents, and releases its sulphur within us, we may fairly assume that persons [570] who eat Tomatoes habitually are likely to have a particular immunity from bacterial and putrefactive diseases.
Wherefore it is altogether improbable that Tomatoes will engender cancer, which is essentially a disease of vitiated blood, and of degenerate cell tissue. Possibly the old exploded doctrine of signatures may have suggested, or started this accusation against the maligned, though unguarded Tomato: for it cannot be denied the guileless fruit bears a nodulated tumour-like appearance, whilst showing, when cut, an aspect of red raw morbid fleshy structure strangely resembling cancerous disease.
Vegetarians who eat Tomatoes constantly and freely claim that cancer is a disease almost unknown among their ranks; but an Italian doctor writing from Rome gives it as the experience of himself and his medical brethren that cancer is as common in Italy and Sicily among vegetarians as with mixed eaters. Most of our American cousins, who are the enterprising fathers of this medicinal fruit, persuade themselves that they are never in perfect health except during the Tomato season. And with us the ruddy Solanum has obtained a wide popularity not simply at table as a tasty cooling sallet, or an appetising stew, but essentially as a supposed antibilious purifier of the blood. When uncooked it contains a notable quantity of Solanin, and it would be dangerous to let animals drink water in which the plant had been boiled. The Staff of the Cancer Hospital at Brompton have emphatically declared "they see no ground whatever for supposing that the eating of Tomatoes predisposes to cancer."
Nevertheless some country people in the remote American States attribute cancer to an excessively free use of the wild uncultivated tomato as food.