Aside from the commercial facets of crude drug collection, preparation, and marketing, North Carolina and eastern Tennessee have also been states with predominantly rural populations, both white and colored, which are knowledgeable about the medicating values of many of the indigenous plants and often use them in the practice of domestic medicine. These people regularly use or have used pokeweed (or pokeberry) root (Phytolacca americana), mandrake root (Podophyllum peltatum) (often used for “the itch”), yellow root (Zanthorrhiza simplicissima) (as general tonic and with poke root externally for warts), mullen (Verbascum thapsus, etc.) (cooked with honey as cough syrup, also for “rheumatism”), “bricklin ash” (prickly ash, Zanthoxylum clava-herculis) (for “rheumatism”), American pennyroyal (Hedeoma pulegioides), rabbit tobacco (Gnaphalium obtusifolium), sassafras (“sassafac”) root or root bark (Sassafras albidumy . yaupon leaves and twigs (Ilex vomitoria) (stimulant beverage like mate, which belongs to the same genus), blood root (Sanguinaria canadensis) (for liver disorders), and catnip herb (Nepera cataria). Many other plants are also less commonly used, including boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum) (for colds and pneumonia), wild cherry bark (Prunus serotina, etc.) (as tonic powder before meale to stirnulate appetite), spree wood (Lindera benzoin)*, devil’s shoestring (Tephrosia virginiana, goat’s rue) (in poultices for local pain, sedative), dogwood root bark (Cornus florida) (quinine substitute, also for dentalgia), balm of gilead buds (Populus candicans) (for cuts and bruises, as ointment), “black gulver root” (Culver’s root, Veronicastrum virginicam) (used for “kidneys”), dewberry root and blackberry root (Rubus spp.) (used to reduce diarrhea), and * Used as beverage (tea) in the spring to “thin and purify the blood” and to make it easier to sustain the hot weather of summer (sic). Many persons also claimed sassafras tea stimulated in the same way as coffee or Chinese tea.
(1977). Word Particles as a Clue to Meaning of Technical Names. Quarterly Journal of Crude Drug Research: Vol. 15, No. 4, pp. 213-214.
One of the great classics of British literature, “The Return of the Native” by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), which was published in 1876, bears numerous references to the plants and animals of the moorland where the author grew up, in the area near Dorchester, England. Using the Dodds Mead edition of 1950, on page 73 (Chapter VII), mention is made of the probable use as hairbrush of the tufts of Ulex europaeus (the plant is identified in the novel by its scientific name!). Darkening of the façade of a house by a “huge pyracanth” (p. 148), the kindly shelter of brambles (Rubus spp.) which is “the latest of the deciduous bushes to lose their leaves” (p. 169), “the sprouting sedge and grass” (indicating an understanding of these closely related groups, p. 239), and many other references to plants would indicate that Hardy may have been something of an amateur botanist, and possessed a power of observation that is quite uncommon.
Aromatic plants have played an important role in traditional medicine from the earliest times. The aromatic medicinal plants can be classified into those (I) where the attractive odorous principle is reponsible for the pharmacological activity of the drug (or at least one of its activities). There are three chief groups of these: (a) antiseptics, (b) digestive agents (antispasmodics, secretion stimulants, carminatives, etc.); and (c) psychotropics. The second large group are (2) those plants in which the odorous principle is not responsible for the medicinal values. These can be subclassified into (a) plants either entire or odorous portions which are no longer used in pharmacy or have no activity recognized at the present time (such as Dianthus gallicus); and (b) plants whose drug form owes its activity to inodorous principles (for instance, quinine, sterols) even though the plant may be itself odorous (as Convallaria majalis).
