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“Groutweed. Good for hemorrhoids.”
What in the name of God had people used for preventing infection before the advent of antibiotics? And of those limited compounds, which might be available to me in a primitive Scottish castle just after dawn? “Garlic!” I said in triumph. “Garlic, and if you have it, witch hazel.
something I tentatively identified as cherry bark. “Painkiller,” I muttered happily, recollecting Mr. Crook explaining the uses of the barks and herbs we found. Good, we’d need that.
“Now, lad, rinse your mouth wi’ this; ’twill cleanse the cuts and ease the pain. Willow-bark tea,” she explained in an aside to me, “wi’ a bit of ground orrisroot.” I nodded; I recalled vaguely from a long-ago botany lecture hearing that willow bark in fact contained salicylic acid, the active ingredient in aspirin.
“Won’t the willow bark increase the chance of bleeding?” I asked. Mrs. Fitz nodded approvingly. “Aye. It do sometimes. That’s why ye follow it wi’ a good handful of St. John’s wort soaked in vinegar; that stops bleedin’,
Garlic keeps the wee bugs awa’ from the other plants. Onions and yarrow will do the same.
“Mallow root,” she explained. “My husband suffers from a chill on the stomach now and again. Farts like an ox.”
“You were saying yesterday to Colum that ye needed betony and some odd bits of herbs?” “Yes, to make up some medicines for the people with food poisoning.
He had been to the Castle only a few days before to see whether I could treat a persistent felon on his thumb. I had lanced it with a sterile needle and dressed it with poplar-bud salve,
I doled out castor oil and nasturtium syrup to countless children who had overindulged in sweeties.
I pulled away, under the pretext of plucking a bunch of pink-flowered storksbill that grew from a crack in the rock. “Good for headache,” I explained, tucking them into my belt.
There were few patients to be seen; only a case of persistent eczema, a dislocated thumb, and a kitchen boy who had spilled a pot of hot soup down one leg. Having dispensed ointment of yawroot and blue flag and reset and bound the thumb, I settled down to the task of pounding some very aptly named stoneroot in one of the late Beaton’s smaller mortars.
Jamie disappeared for a few minutes. He came back with a handful of dark green oblate leaves, chewing something. He spat a glob of macerated green into the palm of his hand, stuffed another wad of leaves into his mouth and turned me away from him. He rubbed the chewed leaves gently over my back, and the stinging eased considerably. “What is that?” I asked, making an effort to control myself. I was still shaky and snuffling, but the helpless tears were beginning to ebb. “Watercress,” he answered, voice slightly muffled by the leaves in his mouth. He spat them out and applied them to my back.
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Rowan berries, a specific against witchcraft.
He rubbed the flesh just above the leather cuff that attached the peg to his stump. “Have you tried rubbing it with Balm of Gilead?” I asked. “Water-pepper or stewed rue might help too.”
“Mallow root—ah, that’s good for cough.
“Not wi’ child yet?” she demanded. “Raspberry leaves, that’s the thing. Steep a handful wi’ rosehips and drink it when the moon’s waxing, from the quarter to the full. Then when it wanes from the full to the half, take a bit o’ barberry to purge your womb.”
“Raspberry leaves,” she said, laying a confiding hand on my knee. “Mark me, lassie, raspberry leaves will do it. And if not, come to see me, and I’ll make ye a bittie drink o’ coneflower and marrow seed, wi’ a raw egg beaten up in it. That’ll draw yer man’s seed straight up into the womb, ye ken, and you’ll be swellin’ like a pumpkin by Easter.”
He drank the wine slowly, as the Franciscan helped me to change the stained bandages, smoothing fresh marigold ointment over the wounds.
I turned away without speaking and went to busy myself with tidying the small pots and packets of medicines on the side table. I arranged them into small groups, sorted by function: marigold ointment and poplar balm for soothing, willowbark, cherry bark and chamomile for teas, St. John’s wort, garlic, and yarrow for disinfection.
Febrifuges such as coneflower, goldenseal, catnip, and hyssop had been tried, without effect. Willowbark tea, which might have helped with its content of salicylic acid, could not be consumed in amounts large enough to matter.
At one point, the Abbot motioned to Polydore, who stepped forward and held a small vial under Jamie’s nose. It must have contained spirits of ammonia or some other stimulant, because he jerked and turned his head away sharply, eyes still closed.
