THE MULLEIN PLANT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5652, 29 December 1879, Page 6

THE MULLEIN PLANT.

For some time past much interest has been taken in the alleged curative properties of the great mullein plant and the following particulars sent by an herbalist to a Liverpool contemporary may contain information which some of our own readers are in quest of. The writer says : —Believing that some account of this plant will be read with interest, I have copied the following from Dr. W. Beach's celebrated American work :—"This ie a biennial plant, a native of Great Britain, and is probably indigenous to America. It grows plentifully with us along the roadsides and in old lields. The leaves of this plant possess a bitterish sub-astringent taste and are mucilaginous in quality. The flowers contain saccharine, chlorophyle, yellow resin, volatile oil, malic, and phosphoric acid. Properties: The blossoms of this plant are anodyne, antispasmodic, pectoral, demulcent, astringent, and discutient. They make a very pleasant tea, which is useful in coughs, hemoptysia, hemorrhage of the lungs and bowels, &c, Tho leaves in infusion arc very useful in dysentery, and in piles they make a valuable fomentation to discuss the tumours. Employment : The infusion of the leaves and flowers combined is administered in diarrhoea and looseness with advantage, and is said to be very useful in consumption, and may bo drunk freely. It is also efficacious in colics and ardor urinie. It likewise makesa good wash for piles, ecalds, and wounds in cattle. In the form of poultice the leaves and pith of the stalk are useful in white swellings, spraina, aud inflammation. The leaves boiled in vinegar, or bruised aud saturated with, tincture of myrrh, are applied with advantage to offensive sores, swellings, and contracted sinews. The seeds yield an oil which is o good appliescation also for the laet-mentioned complaints. The blosaoms, saturated with rosewater, make an excellent wash for weak eyes, and a watery distillation of them for erysipelas."