Trees In Medicine 



By John Foote, M.D. 



Associate Professor of Materia Mcd'ica and Therapeutics, Georgetown University School of Medicine, Washington, 



D. C, Author of "Essentials of Materia Medica and Therapeutics" 



THE idea that agencies of specific value in the allevi- 

 ation and cure of disease are to be found in plants 

 and herbs is one of the most deep-rooted, as well 

 as one of the most ancient, of human beliefs. The 

 remote folk-tales of archaic peoples embody this idea and 

 relate its application by the hero, the magician or the 

 priest. Even to-day we have our " herb doctors," and we 

 do not need to go back much farther than a generation to 

 recall the drug store, where large stores of " roots and 

 herbs " were kept. There the apprentice was required to 

 ha\'e sturdy shoulder-girdle muscles that he might turn the 

 huge mill in which vegetable drugs were ground, or wield 

 the pestle in the heavy iron mortar, where they were 

 crushed, preparatory to being turned into decoctions, 

 infusions, tinctures and other bulky preparations. 



Nowadays we have more elegant, if less vigorous 

 and copiously substantial, 

 medicines prepared in 

 the wholesale pharmaceu- 

 tical laboratories. Gone is 

 the drug mill, and it 

 reciuires little muscle to 

 serve soda water and per- 

 fumery, (ione, too, are 

 many of the medicines 

 from " roots and herbs " 

 beloved of our fathers, but 

 now shown to be valueless 

 in the light of experimental 

 pharmacology and our 

 newer knowledge of path- 

 ology and bacteriology. For 

 we have learned that medi- 

 cines, except in a few 

 instances, do not remove 

 the cause of the disease, 

 but may simply improve our 

 natural resistance by aid- 

 ing symptoms. 



We have heard of 

 " roots and herbs '' in medi- 

 cine, but, neither in ancient 

 or modern pharmacy, nor 

 in household medicine, do 

 the products of trees as 

 inedicinal agents elicit 

 much comment. 



And yet, in spite of the 

 pharmaceutical image 

 breakers and the therapeutic 



64S 







OLDEST TREE PRODUCT PRESCRIPTION IN THE WORLD 



This papyrus, written, it is estimated, about the time that Moses was twenty- 

 one years old, contains several prescriptions composed in whole or part of tree 

 products. One is for the medicinal employment of the ricinus (degm) tree. 

 The stems, it is declared, when infused iii water make a lotion which cures 

 headache ; the berries chewed with beer relieve constipation ; the berries crushed 

 in oil make the hair grow, and pressed into a salve will cure an abscess in ten 

 days, if applied every morning. The god Seb prescribes wine made from dates 

 to cure wounds and skin diseases and Isis supplies a formula containing juniper 

 berries for pains in the head. The papyrus is in the British Museum. 



nihilists, some of the most \aluable remedies used in 

 medicine come from trees. And by trees is meant trees. 

 not shrubs or bushes. One of the veritable Titans of 

 the forest, a tree that has equaled the Big Trees of 

 California in height, furnishes a much-used medicinal 

 oil. And the one vegetable drug that is a specific for 

 a certain disease, and cures by killing the blood parasite 

 which causes malaria, was known to the older clinical 

 teachers simply as " the bark," because it was the bark 

 of a tree. 



The place of trees and their products in medicine is 

 far from being an incidental or an unimportant one, 

 even in the most conservative works of the most 

 advanced therapeutists. 



And if, as has been asserted, the decadence of Rome 

 was really due to malaria, and if her glory was obscured 



by a cloud of mosquitoes 

 rather than by the dust of 

 battles, then it may be 

 that the possession of some 

 cinchona and the planting 

 of the eucalyptus in the 

 Roman marshes might have 

 prevented a great ci\iliza- 

 tion from withering and 

 fluttering away and changed 

 the countenance of history. 

 But now to discuss some 

 of the trees from which 

 drugs and medicines 

 are obtained : 



The tallest tree known, 

 the Eucalyptus amygdalina. 

 is one of the many species 

 of eucalyptus found in Aus- 

 tralia. It has been known 

 to reach a height of 480 

 feet. Its brother, the Euca- 

 lyptus globulus, which is the 

 popular medicinal variety 

 better known as the blue 

 gum tree, is itself no dwarf, 

 since it attains a height of 

 375 feet. It grows very 

 rapidly, in almost any cli- 

 mate with a mean tempera- 

 ture of about 60° F., but 

 does not endure tempera- 

 ture below 27° F., and is 

 cultivated in the south of 



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