Part 15

The phrase, "living in clover," alludes to cattle being put to feed in rich pasturage.

A sworn foe to the purple clover cultivated by farmers, is the Dodder (Cuscuta trifolii), a destructive vegetable parasite which strangles the plants in a crafty fashion, and which goes by the name of "hellweed," or "devil's guts." It lies in ambush like a pigmy field octopus, with deadly suckers for draining the sap of its victims. These it mats together in its wiry, sinuous coils, and chokes relentlessly by the acre. Nevertheless, the petty garotter-- like a toad, "ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in its head." "If boiled," says Hill, "with a little ginger, the dodder in decoction works briskly as a purge. Also, the thievish herb, when bruised and applied externally to scrofulous tumours, is an excellent remedy."

The word "dodder" signifies the plural of "dodd," a bunch of threads. The parasite is sometimes called "Red tangle" and "Lady's laces."

Its botanical name Cuscuta comes from the Greek Kassuo--to sew together. If the piece of land infested with it is closely mown (and the cut material carried away unshaken), being next covered with deal saw-dust, on which a ten per cent. solution of sulphate of iron is freely poured, then by combining with the tannin contained in the stems of the Dodder, this will serve to kill the parasite without doing any injury to the clover or lucerne. Although a parasite the plant springs every year from seed. It is a remedy for swooning or fainting fits.

The Sweet Clover (or yellow Melilot), when prepared as a tincture (H.), with spirit of wine, and given as a medicine in material doses, causes, in sensitive persons, a severe headache, sometimes with a determination of blood to the head, and bleeding from the nose. When administered, on the principle of curative affinity, in much smaller doses, it is singularly beneficial against nervous headaches, with oppression of the brain, acting helpfully within five minutes. Dr. Hughes (Brighton) writes: "I value this medicine much in nervous headaches, and I always carry it in my pocket-case-- as the mother tincture--which I generally administer by olfaction." For epilepsy, it is said in the United States of America to be "the one grand master-remedy," by giving a drop of the tincture every five minutes during the attack, and five drops five times a day in water, for some weeks afterwards.

The Melilot (from mel, honey, and lotus, because much liked by bees) is known as Plaster Clover from its use since Galen's time in plasters for dispersing tumours. Continental physicians still employ the same made of melilot, wax, resin, and olive oil. The plant contains, "Coumarin" in common with the Sweet Woodruff, and the Tonquin Bean. Other names for it are "Harts' Clover," because deer delight to feed on it and "King's Clover" or "Corona Regis," because "the yellow flouers doe crown the top of the stalkes as with a chaplet of gold." It is an herbaceous plant common in waste places, and having light green leaves; when dried it smells like Woodruff, or new hay.

CLUB MOSS.

Though not generally thought worth more than a passing notice, or to possess any claims of a medicinal sort, yet the Club Moss, which is of common growth in Great Britain on heaths and hilly pastures, exerts by its spores very remarkable curative effects, and therefore it should be favourably regarded as a Herbal Simple. It is exclusively due to homoeopathic provings and practice, that the Lycopodium clavatum (Club Moss) takes an important position amongst the most curative vegetable remedies of the present day.

The word lycopodium means "wolf's claw," because of the claw-like ends to the trailing stems of this moss; and the word clavatum signifies that its inflorescence resembles a club. The spores of Club Moss constitute a fine pale-yellow, dusty powder which is unctuous, tasteless, inodorous, and only medicinal when pounded in all agate mortar until the individual spores, or nuts, are fractured.

By being thus triturated, the nuts give out their contents, which are shown to be oil globules, wherein the curative virtues of the moss reside. Sugar of milk is then rubbed up for two hours or more with the broken spores, so as to compose a medicinal powder, which is afterwards to be further diluted; or a tincture is made from the fractured spores, with spirit of ether, which will develop their specific medicinal properties. The Club Moss, thus prepared, has been experimentally taken by provers in varying material doses; and is found through its toxical affinities in this way to be remarkably useful for chronic mucous indigestion and mal-nutrition, attended with sallow complexion, slow, difficult digestion, flatulence, waterbrash, heartburn, decay of bodily strength, and mental depression. It is said that whenever a fan-like movement of the wings of the nostrils can be observed during the breathing, the whole group of symptoms thus detailed is specially curable by Club Moss.

As a dose of the triturated powder, reduced to a weaker dilution, ten grains may be taken twice a day mixed with a dessertspoonful of water; or of the tincture largely reduced in strength, ten drops twice a day in like manner. Chemically, the oil globules extracted from the spores contain "alumina" and "phosphoric acid." The diluted powder has proved practically beneficial for reducing the swelling and for diminishing the pulsation of aneurism when affecting a main blood-vessel of the heart.

In Cornwall the Club Moss is considered good against most diseases of the eyes, provided it be gathered on the third day of the moon when first seen; being shown the knife whilst the gatherer repeats these words:--

"As Christ healed the issue of blood, Do thou cut what thou cut test for good."

"Then at sundown the Club Moss should be cut by the operator whilst kneeling, and with carefully washed hands. It is to be tenderly wrapped in a fair white cloth, and afterwards boiled in water procured from the spring nearest the spot where it grew," and the liquor is to be applied as a fomentation; or the Club Moss may be "made into an ointment with butter from the milk of a new cow." Such superstitious customs had without doubt a Druidic origin, and they identify the Club Moss with the Selago, or golden herb, "Cloth of Gold" of the Druids. This was reputed to confer the power of understanding the language of birds and beasts, and was intimately connected with some of their mysterious rites; though by others it is thought to have been a sort of Hedge Hyssop (Gratiola).

The Common Lycopodium bears in some, districts the name of "Robin Hood's hatband." Its unmoistenable powder from the spores is a capital absorbing application to weeping, raw surfaces. At the shops, this powder of the Club Moss spores is sold as "witch meal," or "vegetable sulphur." For trade purposes it is obtained from the ears of a Wolfsfoot Moss, the Lycopodium clavatum, which grows in the forests of Russia and Finland. The powder is yellow of colour, dust-like and smooth to the touch. Half a drachm of it given during July in any proper vehicle has been esteemed "a noble remedy to cure stone in the bladder." Being mixed with black pepper, it was recognized by the College of Physicians in 1721 as a medicine of singular value for preventing and curing hydrophobia. Dr. Mead, who had repeated experience of its worth, declared that he never knew it to fail when combined with cold bathing.

Club Moss powder ignites with a flicker, and is used for stage lightning. It is the Blitzmehl, or lightning-meal of the Germans, who give it in doses of from fifteen to twenty grains for the cure of epilepsy in children.

When the "Mortal Struggle" was produced (see Nicholas Nickleby) by Mr. Vincent Crummles at Portsmouth, with the aid of Miss Snevelicci, and the Infant Phenomenon, lurid lightning was much in request to astonish the natives; and this was sufficiently well simulated by igniting, with a sudden flash and a hiss, highly inflammable spores of the Club Moss projected against burning tow within a hollow cone, producing weird scenic effects.

COLTSFOOT.

The Coltsfoot, which grows abundantly throughout England in places of moist, heavy soil, especially along the sides of our raised railway banks, has been justly termed "nature's best herb for the lungs, and her most eminent thoracic." Its seeds are supposed to have lain dormant from primitive times, where our railway cuttings now upturn them and set them growing anew; and the rotting foliage of the primeval herb by retaining its juices, is thought to have promoted the development and growth of our common earthworm.

The botanical name of Coltsfoot is Tussilago farfara, signifying tussis ago, "I drive away a cold"; and farfar, the white poplar tree, which has a similar leaf. It is one of the Composite order, and the older authors named this plant, Filius ante patrem--"the son before the father," because the flowers appear and wither before the leaves are produced. These flowers, at the very beginning of Spring, stud the banks with gay, golden, leafless blossoms, each growing on a stiff scaly stalk, and resembling a dandelion in miniature. The leaves, which follow later on, are made often into cigars, or are smoked as British herbal tobacco, being mixed for this purpose with the dried leaves and flowers of the eye-bright, buckbean, betony, thyme, and lavender, to which some persons add rose leaves, and chamomile flowers. All these are rubbed together by the hands into a coarse powder, Coltsfoot forming quite one-half of the same; and this powder may be very beneficially smoked for asthma, or for spasmodic bronchial cough. Linnoeus said, "Et adhuc hodie plebs in Suecia, instar tabaci contra tussim fugit"--"Even to-day the Swiss people cure their coughs with Coltsfoot employed like tobacco." When the flowers are fully blown and fall off, the seeds with their "clock" form a beautiful head of white flossy silk, and if this flies away when there is no wind it is said to be a sure sign of coming rain. The Goldfinch often lines her nest with the soft pappus of the Coltsfoot. In Paris the Coltsfoot flower is painted on the doorposts of an apothecary's house.

From earliest times, the plant has been found helpful in maladies of the chest. Hippocrates advised it with honey for "ulcerations of the lungs." Dioscorides, Pliny, and Galen, severally commended the use of its smoke, conducted into the mouth through a funnel or reed, for giving ease to cough and difficult breathing; they named it breechion, from breex, a cough.

In taste, the leaves are harsh, bitter, and mucilaginous. They appear late in March, being green above, with an undersurface which is white, and cottony. Sussex peasants esteem the white down of the leaves as a most valuable medicine.

All parts of the plant contain chemically tannin, with a special bitter principle, and free mucilage; so that the herb is to be considered emollient, demulcent, and tonic. Dr. Cullen employed a decoction of the leaves with much benefit in scrofula, where the use of sea water had failed. And Dr. Fuller tells about a girl cured of twelve scrofulous sores, by drinking daily, for four months, as much as she could of Coltsfoot tea, made so strong from the leaves as to be sweet and glutinous. A modern decoction is prepared from the herb with boiling water poured on the leaves, and with liquorice root and honey added.

But, "hark! I hear the pancake bell," said Poor Richard in his almanack, 1684; alluding to pancakes then made with Coltsfoot, like tansies, and fried with saged butter.

A century later it was still the fashion to treat consumptive young women with quaint remedies. Mrs. Delaney writes in 1758, "Does Mary cough in the Night? two or three snails boiled in her barley water may be of great service to her."

Again, the confectioner provides Coltsfoot rock, concocted in fluted sticks of a brown colour, as a sweetmeat, and flavoured with some essential oil--as aniseed, or dill--these sticks being well beloved by most schoolboys. The dried leaves, when soaked out in warm water, will serve as an excellent emollient poultice. A certain preparation, called "Essence of Coltsfoot," found great favour with our grand sires for treating their colds. This consisted of Balsam of Tolu and Friar's Balsam in equal parts, together with double the quantity of Spirit of Wine. It did not really contain a trace of Coltsfoot, and the nostrum was provocative of inflammation, because of the spirit in excess. Dr. Paris said: "And this, forsooth, is a pectoral for coughs! If a patient with a catarrh should recover whilst using such a remedy, I should certainly designate it a lucky escape, rather than a skilful cure." Gerard wrote about Coltsfoot: "The fume of the dried leaves, burned upon coles, effectually helpeth those that fetch their winde thicke, and breaketh without peril the impostumes of the brest"; also "the green leaves do heal the hot inflammation called Saint Anthony's fire."

The names of the herb--Coltsfoot, and Horsehoof--are derived from the shape of the leaf. It is likewise known as Asses' foot, and Cough wort; also as Foal's foot, and Bull's foot, Hoofs, and (in Yorkshire) Cleats.

To make an infusion or decoction of the plant for a confirmed cough, or for chronic bronchitis, pour a pint of boiling water on an ounce of the dried leaves and flowers, and take half a teacupful of it when cold three or four times in the day. The silky down of the seed-heads is used in the Highlands for stuffing pillows, and the presence of coal is said to be indicated by an abundant growth of the herb.