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How were willows used for fevers?

By Chelsie Vandaveer

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March 17, 2003

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The three hundred or so species of willows (genus: Salix) are generally native to the Northern Hemisphere. John Gerard listed seven species in his 1597 edition of The Herbal or General Historie of Plants; Thomas Johnson added an eighth to the 1633 edition.

Salicin or salicylic acid was named for Salix; but aspirin was named for meadowsweet or Spiraea ulmaria, now known as Filipendula ulmaria.
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The Herbal states that the flowers of mede-sweet boiled in wine "do take away fits of a quartaine ague (intermittent fever like malaria), and make the heart merrie." But neither Gerard's nor Johnson's editions makes mention of the analgesic uses of willows. Both plants contain salicylic acid, but the compound awaited discovery until the science of chemistry developed.

Gerard recommended "The leaves and barke of Withy or Willowes do stay the spitting of bloud, and all other fluxes of bloud whatsoever in man or woman, if the said leaves and barke be boiled in wine and drunke. The barke hath like virtues...that this being burnt to ashes, and steeped in vinegar, takes away cornes and other like risings in the feet and toes...divers (others) doe slit the barke whilest the Withy is in flouring, and gather a certain juice, with which they use to take away things that hinder the sight...."

Gerard praised willows for fevers, but not as an internal medicine. "The greene boughes with the leaves may very well be brought into chambers and set about the beds of those that be sicke of fevers, for they do mightily coole the heate of the aire, which thing is a wonderfull refreshing to the sicke Patients."

The first willow listed in Gerard's Herbal appears to be Salix alba, a willow common to Europe and Asia. The Botanischen Garten Münster of Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster has photographs of Salix alba by their pond, including close-ups of the leaves and bark. To view the photographs, click on the link:

http://www.uni-muenster.de/Rektorat/veranst/vstbg02e.htm

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