soothing, cleansing and healing qualities on all the parts( internally or externally) it comes in contact with and it is interesting to learn that its nutritious value is equivalent to oatmeal.
J. Kloss, in“ Back to Eden”, gives us another use for Slippery elm bark:“ An excellent treatment in female troubles in the following: Make a thick paste with powdered Slippery elm with pure water, shape into pieces about one inch long and one inch thick. Place in warm water for a few minutes. These are called vaginal suppositories. Insert three, afterwards inserting a sponge with a string attached. Let it remain 2 days, then remove the sponge and give douche which will remove the Slippery elm. This is an excellent treatment for cancer and tumours of the womb, all growths in the female organs, fallen womb, leucorrhoea, or inflammation and congestion of any part of the vagina or womb and as a rectal suppository, renewed after bowel elimination.”
As a nourishing gruel for children and adults, take 1 teaspoonful of the powder, mix well with the same quantity of honey or maple syrup, add 1 pint of boiling water, soya bean milk, nut milk or milk, slowly mixing as it is poured on. May be flavoured with cinnamon or nutmeg to suit the taste. As a tea, 1 teaspoonful of the inner bark to 1 cupful of boiling water, steeped for 1 hr. or overnight. Can be simmered, strained and then used. This will be like a thick syrup; use small amounts often. Externally: For poultice, the ground powder or bark should be used, softened with water containing a little glycerine. As a mixture 2 parts Slippery elm, 2 parts Corn meal, 1 part of each of Blood root, Blue flag, Ragweed, Chickweed and Burdock. Mix well, add warm water to required consistency and use on abscesses, fresh wounds, inflammation, congestion, eruptions, enlarged prostate, swollen glands of the neck, groin, etc. If applied to a hairy surface, coat the face of the poultice with olive oil. Always use clean white cotton and change often if drainage is noticed. Homoeopathic Clinical: Pounded dried inner bark; decoction of dried bark; tincture of fresh bark— Constipation, Deafness, Haemorrhoids, Herpes, Pain, Syphilis.
SOLOMON’ S SEAL( AMERICAN) Polygonatum commutatum, P. multiflorum( Walt.), Ell.( N. O.: Liliaceae)
Common Names: Drop Berry, Sealwort, Seal Root. Features: Solomon’ s seal consists of about thirty species of usually hardy perennial herbs of the Liliaceae family. Native to moist, shady woods in the north temperate zone. They grow in colonies, each simple( in some species branched) arching stem 12 – 18 in., arising in the spring from a thick, fleshy, many-jointed white rhizome, on which, when the stem dies away in the winter, a round scar is left, the“ seal”( though this name may derive from the pattern on across-section of the stem). The leaves are simple, linear to ovate, sometimes in whorls but mostly alternate, opposite and in two close ranks. The small white or greenish bell-shaped three partite flowers are seen in May and June; later the globular bluish-black berries. Taste is mucilaginous, sweet, then acrid. Medicinal Part: Rhizome. Solvent: Boiling water. Bodily Influence: Astringent, Demulcent, Tonic. Uses: From Herbalists of the past:“ If any of what age or sex so ever chance to have any bones broken in what part of their bodies so ever their refuse is to stamp the root here of and give it unto the patient, in ale to drink, which sodereth and glues together the bones in very short space and very strongly, yea though the bones be but slenderly and. unhandsomely placed and wrapped up.”