MY LADY'S SIMPLES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19215, 2 January 1926, Page 1 (Supplement)

MY LADY'S SIMPLES.

THE FAMILY HERBAL.

BY KOTAKE.

A hundred years ago a village community could be almost self-sufficing. It was able to produce most of the things it needed, and luxuries hardly entered into its calculations. London was little more than a name. National interests touched the village's repose only when the recruiting sergeant, in time of war, swept in with a breath of the great world outside and enticed the youthful stalwarts with his thrilling pictures of military glory. A life, this, of narrow horizons, of fow aspirations, self-centred for the most part, wanting few things and those things all within easy reach. To-day that serenity has almost gone. Life has quickened in the village as in the city. The whole world has become an economic unit: it is no longer a series of isolated nationalities each working out its own destiny. We have made a god of speed, of efficiency. Wo must eliminate waste and we must find always the shortest road. The remotest backwater must link up with the great ocean; the village stream must rise and fall to the flow and ebb of the world's tides. And it is the railway and the telegraph and tho steamer that • have had biggest part in this- transformation. For the far has been brought near, and there is a straight path from every village door to tho remotest ends of the earth.

With all our gains there is much that has been lost, lost without hope of our ever finding it again. The simplicities of a hundred years ago would stand little chance in the present days of sophistication. We have to pay the price of progress. That is one of Nature's sternest laws.

It is a great satisfaction in these hectic days of rush and roar and i-attle to slip back with Miss Mitford to "Our Village" O).' to walk with Jane Austen in the quiet English countryside of a century ago. There came into my hands recently a venerable, leather-bound volume dated 1812 and bearing the promising title, "The Family Herbal." It is the sort of book no well-conducted home of a hundred years ago could afford to be without, a necessary part of every young bride's outfit when she went forth to a homo of her own. The magnificence of the binding makes me certain this volume of mine was originally a wedding present. It has been carefully treasured, and, one would judge, very thoroughly studied. The Medicine Cupboard.

For, in those distant days, doctors were few, and patent medicines were fewer still, and theje was no chemist's shop round the corner. The lady of the house was the family physician. It was part of her duty tc cull the herbs and distil the medicines for the family. And, if she were of some standing in the countryside, her medicine chest was available for the sick poor in the village and in the farm labourer's cottage. Man may be classed as a medicine-taking animal. There have been many fortunes made from a commercial recognition of this primal instinct. We oome of a hardy race. None but a virile people could have absorbed so many tons of pills and contaminated its internal economy with such oceans of patent medicines. We imagine, then, our young bride, armed with her invaluable " Family Herbal," setting forth to draw the hidden virtues from the kitchen garden or the plants that grew in marsh or on mountain. It was no small business, if mv authority is describing the normal routine of the average English household, for the mere gathering of the herbs was the smallest part of the process. When thb work was done, the medicine cupboard was lined with syrups, infusions, boluses, draughts, juleps and tinctures. Each had its own particular potency, and, when the cupboard was full, the proud housewife had enough arrows in her quiver to meet every attack, from every angle, of all the ills that flesh is heir to. The taking of medicine rausfc have been as habitual as the taking of food. Otherwise, why this incredible Variety and why these appalling quantities Juices and Decoctions.

And, first of all, she had to have in full supply the necessary juices, infusions and decoctions. "Juices are to be expressed from leaves or roots, and in order to this they are to be first beaten in a mortar. There is no form whatever in which herbs have as much effect." Thus our admirable herbalist. The mortar must be of wood and the pestle of marble. In this way water-cress, "excellent against the scurvy," and nettles, "excellent against the jaundice," are to be made to render up the virtue that is in them. But not all potent plants are so accommodating. There are some that refuse to give up their juices to the most assiduous pounding in the mortar. These you must circumvent by means of hot water. Pour the water on them, and lo! their reluctance ceases f.nd you have a nicely-im-pregnated infusion. Such are mint and penny-royal, "of a strong taste and excellent virtue." Those that refuse both the pounding and infusion will prove amenable to boiling. The boiled herbs yield the decoctions. So there you have the foundation well and truly laid. There is raach to come, of course, but these will serve as a beginning. Our housewife's cupboard is not quite bare, for these are the first rows: juices, infusions, decoctions. Against the minor ailments she can proceed with confidence. At this Srtage her guide thinks it well to open out wider horizon.;. "I will bring the charitable lady farther in this matter than perhaps she was aware at the first setting out." But he hastens to reassure her that it will be with little expense and little trouble. In fact, "the preparation of these medicines will cost only a little spirit, a little sugar and the labour of a servant."

Distilled Waters. So he leads his disciple on to the making of distilled waters. He advises the use of "molosses spirit"—it sounds like rum. He takes it for granted that the apparatus is available to hand. "Few families are without an alembic, or still." That would be something of an assumption these days. But, apparently, there was no such thing as an illicit still in those simple times, for the excellent reason that every household as a matter of course had a still of its own. The conscientious housewife will have five simple distilled waters, four cordials and two perfames, lavender water and Hungary water. In distilling a simple water no spirit is added. "Three pounds of mint is to be put into the still, with four gallons of water, and two gallons is to be distilled off." The cordials require a generous contribution of the molosses aforesaid. "Aniseed water, which is good in the colic, is made with a pound of aniseed, a pound of angelica seed, and two gallons of spirit with one gallon of water, distilling off two gallons. So far, so good. Next in order come the tinctures. This is a bigger business still, for there should tinctures of every root and every bark of proved medicinal value. The method, though, is simple. "Two ounces of the ingredient is to be cut to thin slices or braised in a mortar, and put into a quart of spirit; it is to stand a fortnight in a place a little warm and be often shook." But we have no time to follow in further detail the stocking of my lady's medicine cupboard. There are white wine tinctures of admirable potency, there are conserves, syrups and ointments, there are "common plaisters and strengthening plaisters and drawing plaisters." and, finally, "a few waters made without distillation, which are very cheap and serviceable, and the family shop will then be quite compleat."