Clinically: Used as extracts and compound tablets for the purposes already mentioned.
HOREHOUND Marrubium vulgare, L.( N. O.: Labiatae)
Common Names: Horehound, White Horehound. Features: The most common of the species of plants in the mint family( Labiatae). Horehound is native to Europe, but has escaped to waste places in temperate zones of North America, especially from Maine, southward of Texas and westward to California and Oregon. It grows on dry, sandy fields, waste grounds and roadsides. The most common horehound is Marrubium vulgare, originating from the Hebrew,“ marrob”, meaning“ a bitter juice”.
The entire plant is clothed in white, downy hairs, giving it a hoary appearance. Its stems are stout, four-angled and mainly erect, with opposite, ovate, rugose, crenately-toothed and softly white hairy leaves. The white flowers are small, strongly two-lipped and densely crowded in the uppermost axils of the stems. The whole herb is medicinal. The flowers appear in June to September and should be gathered before the opening of the flowers. The plant yields a bitter juice of distinct odour and aromatically agreeable taste. The extract is used by the candy houses for an old-time prescription as a cough candy. Can be used fresh or dry. Medicinal Part: The herb. Solvents: Boiling water, diluted alcohol. Bodily Influence: Stimulant, Tonic, Bitter Stomachic, Expectorant, Resolvent, Anthelmintic( large doses), Diuretic, Diaphoretic, Laxative. Uses: Perhaps the most popular of herbal pectoral remedies for congestion of coughs, colds and pulmonary affections associated with unwanted phlegm from the chest. The warm infusion will produce perspiration and flow of urine, and is used with great benefit in jaundice, asthma, hoarseness, amenorrhoea and hysteria.
Taken in large doses it is laxative and will expel worms. The cold infusion is an excellent tonic for some forms of dyspepsia. Some herbalists have found it of use for mercurial salivation. Culpeper used Horehound in various other ways:“ To repel the afterbirth, as an antidote to poisons and for the bites of venomous serpents.” Others used it for running sores. The hot infusion of tincture is more effective when combined with other agents for the purpose intended.
Tincture of Skull cap( Scutellaria lateriflora), 2 – 15 drops. Tincture of Pleurisy root( Asclepias tuberosa), 20 – 15 drops. Tincture of Horehound( Marrubium vulgare), 5 – 40 drops.
In warm water every 2 – 3 hr., according to symptoms. Tincture alone, 20 – 30 min., as indicated by age and condition, every 2 – 3 hr. For children with coughs or croups, steep 1 heaped tablespoonful in 1 pint of boiling water for 20 min., strain, add honey. Should be drunk freely.