History's Flu-Fighting Plants
OSGF
This blogpost discusses the historic and current medicinal uses of various plants. While some of these plants may help soothe cold and flu symptoms, OSGF recommends consulting with a medical professional before adding anything new to your medicine cabinet.
In the wake of the holiday season, many of us return to work or school with stuffy noses, sore throats and uneasy stomachs. No matter what symptoms you have, chances are there is a plant that could help alleviate them: for thousands of years, people have turned to their local gardens and forests to cure their colds. Even with rows of manufactured cold and flu medicine readily available in stores today, the comfort of a steaming pot of ginger tea or a spoonful of elderberry syrup can be hard to beat, and only in recent decades have researchers begun to study the sickness-soothing compounds in some common medicinal plants.
Understanding the medicinal powers of plants was also important to the physicians, botanists, and artists who documented the natural world centuries before, and their work features prominently in the Oak Spring Garden Library. As cold and flu season descends upon us, we looked through the library’s online collections in order to highlight some of the plants used throughout history to fight the flu.
Opium Poppy
“Papavar Hortense/Opium Poppy.” Andreas Friedrich Happe, Herbarium Pictum, c.1780. From An Oak Spring Herbaria.
Did your child come down with a relentless, hacking cough this flu season? If you lived about a century ago, you might stroll down to the local pharmacy and pick up a bottle of Bayer Heroin , which 19th century advertisers guaranteed could suppress the nastiest of coughs and settle the crankiest sick child.
While it didn’t take long for medical experts in the late 1800s to figure out that feeding highly addictive heroin to children was not a wise move, drugs derived from the opium poppy have been a double-edged sword in the medical world throughout human history. Many physicians of the past noted both their usefulness as a sedatives and pain-killers and their potentially lethal effects: in his 1692 treatises on opium, German medical professor Georg Wolfgang Wedel wrote that the drug was “pernicious as a sword in the hands of a madman.”
Even as debate over the medical use of opioids continues today, they still find a place in cold and flu treatments: a type of opioid called dextromethorphan, for example, is a key ingredient in many over-the-counter cough medicines.
Cannabis
“The Female Hemp.” Elizabeth Blackwell, 1736-1738. From A Curious Herbal.
Cannabis is another controversial medicinal plant that has been used for centuries for multiple medicinal purposes. Originating in Central Asia, the female plant in particular (which produces THC, the psychoactive compound in marijuana) was touted by ancient Chinese herbalists as a treatment for a gamut of ailments, including gout, rheumatism, malaria, and cold and flu. As the plant spread to other continents, other herbalists wrote of its useful properties: botanical artist Elizabeth Blackwell, for instance, recommended hemp seeds boiled in milk as a treatment for coughs in A Curious Herbal.
While its ability to treat colds and flus is debatable (and it certainly won’t get rid of your malaria,) some researchers today believe that cannabis’ inflammatory properties - particularly in the form of trendy CBD oil, which is derived from hemp - can help ease unpleasant symptoms, such as headaches, swollen sinuses, and sleeplessness.
Wormwood
“Artemisia Pontica” (Roman Wormwood). Elizabeth Blackwell, 1736-1739. From A Curious Herbal.
Known by most as the key ingredient in neon-green absinthe, wormwood, which includes several varieties of bushy shrubs native to Europe and parts of Africa, has been used throughout human history as a general cure-all. An anti-inflammatory, the plant gets its name from its effectiveness in expelling worms from the digestive tract.
While intestinal parasites are not as much of an issue now as they were in the medieval era, wormwood tea, readily available in health-food stores, can help to soothe an upset digestive system during flu season. And no, it won’t make you hallucinate: although wormwood does contain a hallucinogenic compound called thujone, you would have to ingest very large amounts of the herb (and make yourself dangerously ill in the process) before seeing any green fairies.
Cowslip
“Primula Veris” (cowslip). Elizabeth Blackwell, 1736-1739. From A Curious Herbal.
Want to unclog that stuffy nose? The roots and flowers of yellow cowslip, a member of the primrose family often found dotting the British countryside, contain triterpenoid saponins, a compound found in many medicinal plants that can help to break up mucus. Either brewed in a tea or boiled as a syrup, generations of families have used cowslip to lessen such unpleasant cold and flu symptoms. The slightly citrus-flavored leaves and flowers are edible and, unlike some other plants on this list, quite tasty: they can make a good addition to tossed salads salads, chilled drinks, and desserts.
Elderberry
“Elderberry,” A New and Complete American Medical Family Herbal, 1814. From An Oak Spring Herbaria.
While elderberry has experienced somewhat of a recent resurgence as a cold and flu cure, going viral on social media and causing controversy in the medical community, our ancestors were well aware of the flowering tree’s useful medicinal properties. Hippocrates referenced it as a folk remedy, and Native American tribes found a variety of medicinal uses for all parts of the plant. They were certainly on to something: recent, small-scale medical studies found that the use of elderberry syrup shortened the duration of colds and influenza.
For those interested in seeing what all the fuss is about, there is a wide array of purple-hued elderberry products available in many grocery stores. However, if you want to make tea or syrup yourself, proceed with caution: the seeds of uncooked berries contain a type of cyanide, and can make you quite ill if they are not properly prepared.
Ginger
English School, nature prints of plants and trees from the early 1700s. I. ‘Asrabaca,’ or European Wild Ginger. From An Oak Spring Herbaria.
Unlike some other plants on this list, ginger is still a well-known cold and flu cure, and for good reason: aside from being a diaphoretic (meaning that it increases sweating and warms you up,) the root of ginger, a long-stemmed yellow perennial flower, is a fairly strong anti-nausea agent, and has been used successfully to treat everything from seasickness to nausea induced by chemotherapy.
Native to Central Asia, ginger root has been used as a spice and tonic for well over 5,000 years in India and China, and its unique flavor and medicinal usefulness have since given it a place in home remedies all over the world. While scientists have only recently begun researching the compounds this humble brown root, some studies have shown that it may have cancer fighting-properties - pretty impressive for a plant that goes for about $3 a pound at Walmart.
Stinging Nettle
“Stinging nettle with two mosquitoes.” Joshua Webster, from Webster’s Distributions of English Medicinal Plants, 1780. From An Oak Spring Herbaria.
While anyone who ever has ever had the misfortune to brush up against a stinging nettle likely wouldn’t dream of eating it, the wide-spread plant has been used by cultures throughout the world as a nutrient-rich food and as a treatment for various ailments. As far back as the first and second centuries, Greek physicians wrote of using stinging nettle leaf as a diuretic, and it has also been used to calm runny eyes and noses due to its anti-inflammatory properties. Recent studies have also shown that extracts from the leaf have been successful at treating arthritis.
If you want to add nettle to your medicine cabinet, have at it: regardless of whether or not it clears up your sinuses, its high levels of vitamins and chlorophyll will at least give your immune system a boost (and don’t worry about getting stung – there are plenty of safe teas and capsules available at health food stores.)
Aloe
“The Common Aloe.” Elizabeth Blackwell, 1736-`1738. From A Curious Herbal.
We’ve all used aloe as a sunburn treatment or decorative succulent, but did you know that the antiseptic properties in aloe gel (the sticky stuff inside the leaves) can also help soothe the irritated sinuses, sore throats, and chapped noses that come with a nasty cold? Native to the Arabian peninsula, aloe is another anti-inflammatory plant that has been used as a cure-all since the dawn of human history, appearing in ancient Eygptian carvings and supposedly helping to heal the wounds of Alexander the Great’s soldiers.
If you are interested in drinking aloe to help with your cold or flu, be careful to purchase juice designed for that purpose: there are many different types of gel available in stores, and, given that aloe is also a laxative (In A Curious Herbal, Blackwell described aloe as useful for “purging,”) drinking too much could have unintended consequences.
Interested in learning more about history’s medicinal plants? Check out An Oak Spring Herbaria on our issuu page. Written by Lucia Tongiorgi Tomasi and OSGF head librarian Tony Willis, it features sixty-three works on medicinal plants from the Oak Spring Garden Library. Our Google Arts and Culture Page also includes an exhibit on the plants and people who shaped modern medicine, including several plates from botanical artist Elizabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbal.