Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 May 1912 — Medicinal Plants [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Medicinal Plants

Teach the Value of Many Neglected Weeds

By H. LOWATER. Chicago

Wr AS the spring time ever linked in your mind with sulphur and medical teas? What a course of “doctoring” the ” youngsters used to get, not only in the spring but at other times! Most of those old but prized recipes had been handed down from one generation to another. They consisted largely of roots, barks, herbs and the like that could be found in the fence comers, along the roadside or in mother’s garden, and were gathered when in certain stages of growth. Has the use of these old-fashioned medicines gone not to return? No. < The old motherly practice has disappeared, but I find the same simples are used by our most mtelligent physicians and kept for sale in most drug stores. Dandelion, tansy and pokeweed are often prescribed for the same disorders that our mothers prescribed them. Oh, no, not by the old names, but under certain cabalistic characters, which the chemist understands, but the reading of which would sound learned and potent to us laymen, if patients. I have often seen near Garfield park, on vacant lots, in masses of sweet clover, many of these medicinal plants, also in the gardens and waste places on the outskirts of the city. These same simples are the bases of most of our best cough and vegetable compounds, but instead of being made from good American plants they are generally manufactured from costly imported products. Why? the citv man out of a job does not realize how monev is planted under the roots of these plants '; because the boy or girl living in the suburbs does not know how to recognize these plants except as weeds and has never been taught when to harvest them. Manv of them are pests but

still they are money-producing things if one knows how or when. Why should this and one other topic not be the subjects of occasional school talks with illustrations? A few minutes twice a week with prepared charts in place of many “frills” now used to kill rime would impart much useful information. The two topics I refer to are: 1. Simple medicinal plants, how to find and when to harvest them. 2. Insects bene£cisl to man and how to recognize them.