A Modern Herbal (Volume 1 A-H): The Medicinal Culinary Cosmetic and Economic Properties Cultivation and Folk-Lore of Herbs Grasses Fungi Shrubs & Trees with Their Modern Scientific Uses

There is not one page of this enchanting book which does not contain something to interest the common reader as well as the serious student. Regarded simply as a history of flowers it adds to the joys of the country. -- B. E. Todd Spectator. If you want to know how pleurisy root lungwort and abscess root got their names how poison ivy used to treat rheumatism or how garlic guarded against the Bubonic Plague consult A Modern Herbal. This 20th-century version of the medieval Herbal is as rich in scientific fact and folklore as its predecessors and is equally encyclopedic in coverage. From aconite to zedoary not an herb grass fungus shrub or tree is overlooked; and strange and wonderful discoveries about even the most common of plants await the reader. Traditionally an herbal combined the folk beliefs and tales about plants the medicinal properties (and parts used) of the herbs and their botanical classification. But Mrs. Grieve has extended and enlarged the tradition; her coverage of asafetida bearberry broom chamomile chickweed dandelion dock elecampane almond eyebright fenugreek moss fern figwort gentian Harts tongue indigo acacia jaborandi kava kava lavender pimpernel rhubarb squill sage thyme sarsaparilla unicorn root valerian woundwort yew etc. -- more than 800 varieties in all -- includes in addition methods of cultivation; the chemical constituents dosages and preparations of extracts and tinctures unknown to earlier herbalists; possible economic and cosmetic properties and detailed illustrations from root to bud of 161 plants. Of the many exceptional plants covered in Herbal perhaps the most fascinating are the poisonous varieties -- hemlock poison oak aconite etc. -- whose poisons in certain cases serve medical purposes and whose antidotes (if known) are given in detail. And of the many unique features perhaps the most interesting are the hundreds of recipes and instructions for making ointments lotions sauces wines and fruit brandies like bilberry and carrot jam elderberry and mint vinegar sagina sauce and cucumber lotion for sunburn; and the hundreds of prescriptions for tonics and liniments for bronchitis arthritis dropsy jaundice nervous tension skin disease and other ailments. 96 plates 161 illustrations.