Introduction
Hypericum -St. John’s Wort-thrice blessed herb for the relief of pain: named through the centuries after the beloved disciple; possibly, by analogy, from having been used by him for healing purposes? (One could quote many herbs which had thus acquires their common names). Had the name been merely of ecclesiastical bestowal, it would surely have been St.Luke’s Wort, because it was Luke who was “the beloved physician”.
Among the Wound-worts and Bruise-worts of our land, none rivals Hypericum for its healing touch on injured nerves, and for injuries-especially to parts rich in nerves. Here we use it both externally and internally.
One remembers happy hours, roaming the Surrey woods and wastes with a certain herb-woman, whose mother had been maid to a Lady Shrewsbury, a great herbalist, from whom the lore had descended.
From this herb-woman one caught the habit of crushing herbs between thumb and fingers, to express and inhale their scents- fragrant or otherwise. According to her, health comes to those who so haunt the woods and taste their sweetness. The woman used to say, “There are two herbs of very kind”, i.e. the real (medicinal) herb and its counterfeit, which to the uninitiated, looks curiously like it, but is valueless. But-crush them and see! Crush Hypericum perforatum -flowers, stalk or leaves, and you will never forget the curious, almost resinous scent, which persists in the tinctures. Crush the small yellow flowers of St. John’s Wort, and to your surprise, dark red smears stain you fingers. These are from glands at the base of the flowers; and because of these the tinctures (“tinctures mine were apt to be called!) are a beautiful red colour. But you will know for certain that you have found our medicinal Hypericum perforatum by holding up its narrow leaves to the light, and observing the pellucid dots with which they are studded. These “holes”, together with the “blood- stains”, suggested to the ancient searchers after “signatures” the uses of the plant-for wounds, and for punctured wounds.
That “Doctrine of Signature!”-one is not supposed to mention it in these materialistic days, because, you see, it is almost as absurd as Homoeopathy. But it was really responsible for the discovery of many common medicines. The idea being, that the Almighty had set His seal on substances and plants useful for healing, so that they might be recognized by His suffering children in their need.
One remembers poor old man who used to come and beg a few twigs of Barberry, to cure his “yellow jaunders”. How did he se them? Why, it was like this. He scraped off the yellow substance from just beneath the bark, steeped that in beer, and found it a sure cure for his malady. And indeed, most of the liver medicines are yellow-Berberis-Chelidonium, etc., while remedies that affect the blood especially are red-the salts of iron-Hamamelis-Hypericum, etc.
However, since the writer of the above is peculiarly sensitive to ridicule, may it be considered unwritten!
Among out indigenous wound-worts is the Daisy of the fields, Bellis perennis: of which Culpepper says, “This is another herb which nature has made common, because it may be useful.” The Daisy is our English Arnica, and resembles it, even to the production and cure of boils. Yarrow, again, most difficult to get rid of!-Why, it had the impertinence, one year, to ruin the grass outside the National Gallery, right in the hear of London. But it has excuses for its ubiquity. It has been Achillea millefolium since the days when it was used by Achilles (As mentioned in the Iliad) to heal the wounds of his soldiers. Millefolium is a great remedy for bleeding wounds and for haemorrhages.
Of course healing in the good old days was largely in the hands of wise women, who had learnt from wise women before them the use of the herbs of field and wood. But that was before the bad new days when a qualified doctor grows every bush, his pockets bulging with aspirin-morphia-carbolic acid-iodine, to oust the simpler, and saner, and more beneficent herbs. For aspirin and morphia only blunt sensation; they never cure the pain which Hypericum does, as we shall see.
Culpepper thus describes Hypericum, whose uses he knew so well some 300 years ago. “the plant abides in the ground, shooting anew every spring. The two small leaves set one against the other at every place” (up the stems) “are of a deep green colour, narrow, and full of small holes in every leaf, which cannot be so well perceived as when they are held up to the light. At the tops of the stalks and branches stand yellow flowers of five petals, with many yellow head sin the middle, which being bruised do yield a reddish juice like blood.
“It is an excellent vulnerary plant outwardly of great service in bruises, contusions and wounds, especially in the nervous parts. The ointment opens obstructions, dissolves swellings, and closes up the lips of wounds.”
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And Kent gives one of his graphic pictures of Hypericum: “When finger ends or toes have been bruised or lacerated, or a nail torn off, or a nerve pinched between hammer and bone with a blow, and that nerve becomes inflamed, and the pain can be traced extending towards the body with stitching, darting pains, or shooting up towards the body from the seat of injury, a dangerous condition is coming on. Here Hypericum is above all remedies the one to be thought of Lockjaw is threatening.”
“Or,” he says, “A vicious dog will take hold through thumb, or hand, or wrist, and run his teeth through the radial nerve or some of its branches in hand, causing a lacerated wound or a wound may yawn, swell up, no tendency to heal, look dry and shiny on its edges; red, inflamed; burning, stinging, tearing pains; no healing process. That wound needs Hypericum. It prevents tetanus. A shoemaker may stick his awl into the end of his thumb or a carpenter may stick his finger with a brass tack, and he does not think much of it, but the next night shooting pains extend up the arm with great violence. The allopathic physician looks upon that as a serious matter, for he sees lockjaw or tetanus ahead. When these pains come on, Hypericum will stop them, and from the stage to advanced states of tetanus with opisthotonos and lockjaw, Hypericum is the remedy.
“Punctured wounds, rat bites, cat bites, etc., are made safe by Ledum, but if the pain shoots from the wound up the nerve of the arm, it is more like Hypericum Injuries to spine Injuries to coccyx Injuries to spine Injuries to coccyx.”
Kent’s Lecture on Hypericum, where he compares it with other such remedies, is a masterpiece. We may reproduce it in part later on.
Lockjaw. One of the cases in which Hypericum was curative in lockjaw, is given in Clarke’s Dictionary. It was in a boy, bitten in the finger by a tame rat. Some time afterwards he became alarmingly ill: he could with difficulty speak; jaws firmly locked; neck so stiff that it could hardly be moved. Great tenderness about the wound. Hypericum 500th potency in water, was given at 8 p.m., every 15 minutes at first, then every two hours. By 3 a.m. there was improvement and he fell asleep, and next morning was practically convalescent.
Now for some homely illustrations in our own ken, briefly told, out showing that Hypericum has not lost its healing power, but that its ancient reputation is well-founded.
“For injuries to nerves.” In the early days of motor cars, coachman and groom were put under instruction, learning to drive. The groom took his turn at the wheel. The coachman, a big Scotchman, stood up behind and leant over to watch. The groom served badly up on to the side of a hedge, and it presently discovered that the coachman had been jerked out and left far behind on the road. He was in great pain; through careful examination gave it that neither bones, nor joints and suffered. Two or three days later, the pain had become very severe (in spite of Arnica), with both legs powerless to support him, and as he lay in bed, every movement sent shooting pains down both legs to knees and ankles and feet. He cried out repeatedly as he was turned on to his side. There was swelling and tenderness over sacrum and over right sciatic nerve: and, because of the shooting pains, two drops of Hypericum O were given.
Three hours later the prescriber met her father as he came in from his ride.”I’m frightened about F. We’d better get Dr.-to see him again. We don’t want him paralysed!” “Oh, he’s all right,” was the answer. “I went up to see him, and he’s much better. He was up and dressed and walking about.” A few more doses of Hypericum O and Hypericum lotion externally, and he got up again that evening and walked the passage with sticks. Next day, went down stairs and across to the stables. Again, next day, was at work without a stick; drove the carriage out, and cleaned it himself.
A month later, with the advent of cold weather, there were again shooting pains from sacrum up sides of neck, and shooting pains down both legs, with some numbness and difficulty in lifting feet. Hypericum O and 30th potency improved matters quickly, and in a few days he was all right. This was in 1907, and there has been no recurrence of the trouble.
