*Some Of The Herbs used instead of Drug During The War Between The States, 1861-5.*

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Some Of The Drug Conditions During The

War Between The States, 1861-5.*

 

A Paper read before a meeting of the

American Pharmaceutical Association held in Baltimore, Maryland,

in August, 1898,*

 

By Joseph Jacobs, Pharmacist, Atlanta,

Georgia.

 

 

In the

interior districts and small villages the country doctors returned to the first

principles and to the use of the plants of the fields and forests; and these

agencies were about all they had to rely on, outside of whiskey and a little

quinine, the latter frequently at $100 an ounce.

 

 

Interviewing

one of our old Confederate surgeons, he said:

" During

the early part of the war, I was placed in charge of a railroad hospital in a

small town where it was difficult to obtain medicine at almost any cost, and as

I had my little hospital crowded nearly all the time, both with employes of the

road and wounded and sick soldiers, afflicted with various diseases and all

kinds of wounds and injuries, and being also engaged in general practice, it naturally

followed that my mind was severely taxed in order to supply the remedies and

substitutes to meet the demands of such varied practice. I perused my dispensary

and called into requisition an old botanic practice which had been handed down

as a relic of the past, but from which I confess to have received valuable aid

and very many useful hints in regard to the medical virtues of our native

plants. I give you the following facts from a record I kept of the patients

treated, and the remedies I used, and the principal substances I resorted to:

" Of

that large class of medicines, so useful in surgery and so much in demand in

war times, called antiseptics, most of them, I may say, have been discovered

and appropriated to surgical use since our war. In fact, I had but little else

at my command except the cold-water dressing for wounds. From experiment I

learned to improve on the plain old method, as I think, by employing a decoction

of red-oak bark added to the water, which acted as a disinfectant, and by its

stimulating and astringent properties promoted the healing process. I also used

a weak solution of bicarbonate of soda, which I found beneficial in the

suppurative stages. When emollients were indicated, I used slippery elm and

wahoo root bark, and solution of common salt often helped. In case of great

pain I employed poppy heads, nightshade and stramonium.

" I

had a number of cases of intermittent fever. I would give strong boneset tea,

warm, until free vomiting was produced, and as a substitute for quinine I used,

during the intermission, butterfly root or pleurisy root tea, which would

nearly always shorten the febrile stage.

" Romittent

or bilious fevers were treated much the same way, except that I invariably gave

good doses of mandrake tea in the febrile stage. Virginia snake-root, yellow

root, or Sampson's snake-root acted nearly as well, but I preferred the other.

If I could have obtained blue mass or calomel I would have begun treatment with

that, but none were to be had.

" Mayapple

root or peach-tree leaves made into a strong tea and drank warm would act on

the bowels as certainly as senna; but with children where too much tea is not

desirable, I often gave beeps feet oil, hog's feet oil, or even lard heated with

syrup.

" In

cases of pneumonia, pleurisy, catarrhal fevers, etc., I made local applications

of mustard seed or leaves, stramonium leaves, hickory leaves, pepper, etc.,

warm, and gave alternately butterfly-root and sanguinaria, and continued to slightly

nauseating, from day to day (no need of anything else). The two

last-named remedies took the place of Dover's powder, quinine and all other

diaphoretics, febrifuges end arterial sedatives.

" Phytalacca

or poke was another favorite remedy—the tincture when alcohol or whisky could

be obtained; otherwise, tea of roots or berries. I used it in all cases of

chronic rheumatism or neuralgia, enlarged glands, scrofula, syphilis, and all

cases requiring alteratives, often combined with American sarsaparilla root,

sassafras, alder and prickly ash.

" Female

complaints gave me some trouble, but I soon learned the use of the black haw,

squaw-weed, partridge berry, etc. I had been taught in the use of old

text-books that opiates in large doses would control some cases of threatened

abortion, when the patient had not lost too much from hemorrhage. I found that

the black haw root tea would absolutely stop this tendency, not only in cases

where there was but little hemorrhage, but where large quantities had passed,

and would relieve the most severe cases of dysmenorrh�a, especially when

combined with squaw-weed, partridge berry or red shank.

" In

stomach and bowel diseases I found but little difficulty in obtaining plenty of

substitutes for opiates, astringents and the like; in fact, I believe that an

all wise Providence has especially provided the best antidotes in creation on

the hills and dales, and by the vales and streams of our own Southland. In

ordinary loose-ness of the bowels or diarrh�a, I gave an infusion of raspberry

leaves or whortleberry leaves (both of which act finely on the kidneys and

bladder). Where there was nausea or sick stomach, a handful of peach leaves

steeped in water and drank will settle it, or what is perhaps better, the

kernel of two or three seeds cracked and cold water drank off of them. If

stronger astringent is necessary, the inner bark of red oak, blackberry or

dewberry root tea, or red shank root, are sure remedies.

" Agrimony

tea, and, as a last resort, the nut-gall or ink-ball made into what, from its

color, I called black wash(made by squeezing the juice out and adding a little

copperas). This black wash is not only a splendid ink, but is a destroyer of

syphilitic sores, warts, corns, ringworm, and old ulcers and excrescences of

nearly every kind, much superior to lime water and calomel. Weakened properly,

it is good in obstinate bowel diseases, and can be used as an injection in

gonorrhea, gleet, etc. Silk weed root put in whiskey and drank, giving at the

same time pills of rosin from the pine tree, with very small pieces of blue

vitrol will cure obstinate cases of gonorrhea, and is a substitute for copaiba,

cubebs, etc.

" I

raised lobelia from the seed, and found it to be a reliable emetic, useful in

cough medicines, croup and asthma. I have relieved asthma with lobelia, and by

smoking stramonium leaves. We, of course, used turpentine as an adjunct in all cases

where indicated, which is the case in very many diseases, and in many a

positive curative agent.

" Onions

and garlic were used as poultices in nearly all glandular enlargements, as are

also poke-root, celery, pepper, parsley, sage, thyme, rue and other garden

products. Many of the latter were used for the diseases of women and children.

" White

sumac, red elm, prickly ash, and poke, will in connection with my black wash

cure recent cases of syphilis. It will also cure many cases of chronic

rheumatism. Peach-tree leaves and Sampson's snake-root will cure most cases of incipient

dyspepsia. Gargle made of sage and honey will cure most cases of sore throat,

tonsilitis, etc.

" For

infants, calamus, catnip and soot teas are better than soothing syrups with

opiates. "

 

Source:

Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. XXXIII. Richmond,

Va., January-December. 1905

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