Open Writing

"The common Mugwort groweth wilde in sundry places about the borders of fields, about high waies, brooke sides, and such like places." So sayeth John Gerard in his Historie of Plants, published in 1636.

In ancient times, a traveller who had a little bunch of the herb on his person "feeleth no weariesomnesse at all". It was also considered to be some sort of antidote to the effects of opium. Nicholas Culpepper's Complete Herbal, published at around the same time, lists it as motherwort. He tells us "There is no better herb to take melancholy vapours from the heart, to strengthen it, and make a merry, cheerful, blithe soul". Furthermore, "it makes women joyful mothers of children" which is why it was called motherwort.

Of particular interest is the information that motherwort is efficacious in warming up cold humours "that are settled in the veins, joints, and sinews of the body". A cold humour in the joints might well be a cause of gout, and this is where we call upon another great tome of the period.

It is always a delight to browse through Eighteen Books of the Secrets of Art & Nature being The Summe and Substance of Naturall Philosophy Methodically Digested. First designed by John Wecker Dr in Physick, and now much Augmented and Inlarged by Dr R.Read.

Among the many old remedies for gout, we find that a King's Chirurgion dealt with gout of the hands and feet thus: "Take a handfull of Mugwort, let it boyle in sweet Oyle of Olives, untill a third part only remain, anoint the pained parts with it, you shall soon find the pain abated".

That seems easy enough. Not all the remedies cited by Dr Wecker and Dr Read are as straightforward. For example: "Burn the head of a Kite, the Feathers being pluckt off, and take as much of that as you can hold in three fingers". Or: "If you take the right foot of a Tortois, and hang that over the right foot of him that hath the Gout in his feet, it will help him, and so it will, if you hang the left claw over the left foot; so the forefoot helps the hand, and the toe helps the toes".
The skin of the right heel of a vulture and "the Oyl wherein Frogs are boiled untill the flesh part from their bones" are also listed. The good doctors do not actually agree with or recommend these remedies, by the way. Their purpose is simply to list them for information and entertainment. Thank goodness for that.

If you want to makes things really complicated, try this for size: "Take a new earthen pan with a flat bottome, with upright brims like a Cheesefat, but somewhat deeper well glazed, or some stone vessell after that fashion, which hath never been occupied, then take a Goat of four years old, for a Man a Male Goat, for a Woman a Female Goat; let this Goat be beheaded in the new of the Moon, you must not save the first nor the last bloud, but let the middle bloud run into your pan, and let it stand in the same pan untill it be think and cold, then cut it into gobbets like Trochikses, and in a faire Sunny day, lay them abroad upon a net the better to turn them to dry on both sides, let them be very well dried before you lay them up; When you would use it, take a spoonfull of the pouder of the same blood, with Vinegar and Wine, or with the distilled water of Parsley, at such time as the Patient doth find himself grieved, and you shall see a wonderful effect."

A trochik, by the way, was a medicated tablet or lozenge. We seem to finish up with tablets that are to be combined with other ingredients in a concoction for the patient to drink. Or perhaps it is to be massaged into the pained parts. Wouldn't it be easier to drink or apply the poor old goat's blood without first processing it? Or to use mugwort?

Alternative medicine websites seem to indicate that beliefs about mugwort are pretty much the same as in the 17th century. No valid clinical tests have been conducted to confirm that it has any medicinal value. So you might as well use a goat, a kite, a tortoise, a vulture, or the Oyl wherein Frogs are boyled, eh?

© Copyright Brian Barratt 2011