310 
NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MISTLETOE. 
called the Mistle. If to this we add the old English tod or toe , signifying bush , we 
have at once the derivation—meaning the mingled or compounded bush. 
Anciently, as we have seen, the Mistletoe was considered a remedy for all 
diseases ! The older medical writers, however, regarded it as ministering chiefly 
to fertility and parturition, thus, in fact, continuing in part the old superstition; 
and it is also said to have been worn as an amulet against poisons. Ray mentions 
it as a specific in epilepsy,* and as useful in apoplexy and giddiness; and Sir 
John Colbatch published a “ Dissertation concerning the Mistletoe, a most won¬ 
derful specifick remedy for the cure of convulsive distempers.” This brochure of 
Sir John’s seems to have been almost the last serious effort of consequence made 
in behalf of the medical virtues of our mystic plant, at least in this country ; and 
as it is admitted by all parties that the Mistletoe employed must be Viscus 
quercus , while it seems reasonable to suppose that if the plant had any powers, 
the place of its growth would be of little consequence, incredulity has taken 
possession of the minds of the great majority of physicians on the subject; and 
Sir James Smith rather sarcastically intimates that “ a plant of Viscum gathered 
from the Oak is preferred by those who rely on virtues which perhaps never 
existed in a?iy Mistletoe whatever .”f At all events, as stated by Dr. Woodville 
in the Medical Botany, whatever may yet be argued in its favour, “ the colleges of 
London and Edinburgh have, perhaps not without reason, expunged it from their 
catalogues of materia medica.” 
The Mistletoe seems still, however, to maintain a precarious place in rustic 
empirical practice. I asked a farmer, who lives in the neighbourhood of my 
residence, a short time since, what he knew on the subject, and he said that the 
Mistletoe of the Oak, when it could be met with, was a capital thing for a sick 
cow !—but especially after calving—shades of the Druids ! that “ all-heal,” once 
gathered by a white-robed Arch-Druid with a golden hook, and received upon a 
stainless cloth, as the mystic gift of heaven—now shorn of all its glories, and 
divested of all its sanatory powers as respects the human race, now only figures 
in the traditions of rural practitioners as an aperient for an ailing cow ! It is 
probable that an elastic gum might be prepared from the Mistletoe somewhat 
similar to India-rubber, for its sap is viscid as well as the berries, which were 
formerly used to make birdlime, whence the latin appellation Viscum. 
^Raii Syn ., 464. 
+ English Flora , Vol. IV., p. 237. 
