Were the hearts eased?

By Chelsie Vandaveer

March 15, 2004

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John Gerard considered the heart's-ease (Viola tricolor) "of a temperature obscurely cold, but more evidently moist, of a tough and flimie juice...for which cause it moistneth and suppleth...." By the best ideas of medicine in those days, cold and moist plants were thought the cure for hot and dry diseases, those illnesses accompanied by inflammations or fevers. The tiny pansies were distilled; apparently the medicinal was a type of water of violets.

"It is good, as the later Physitions write, for such as are sicke of an ague (fever with chills and shivering), especially children and infants, whose convulsions and fits of the falling sicknesse (epilepsy) it is thought to cure.

Viola Tricolour
Pierre-Joseph Redouté
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"It is commended against inflammations of the lungs and chest, and against scabs and itchings of the whole body, and healeth ulcers....given to drinke for ten or more days together, three ounces in the morning, and the like quantitie at night, doth wonderfully ease the paines of the French disease, and cureth the same, if the Patient be cause to sweat sundry times...." (The Herbal, 1633 edition)

The French disease was syphilis and had been spreading in Europe for about 100 years. Gerard's prejudice is obvious, but most European countries had their versions of the name: in Holland, it was the Spanish disease, in France, the Italian disease, and in Turkey, the Christian disease.

Since syphilis goes into a latent or non-symptomatic stage, the distilled water of Viola tricolor probably seemed like a cure. Latency may last for years before the final stage sets in. It is doubtful that "physitions" of Gerard's day ever connected the blindness, dementia, or paralysis years later with the original infection.

The name, heart's-ease, is of uncertain origin. It may have had to do with the plant's supposed powers to induce love, or perhaps, it was thought to bring peace of mind to someone ill. Coincidentally, heart's-ease entered the English language the same century that the first well-documented outbreak of syphilis hit French soldiers returning from Italy.

HabitasOnline, the website Ulster Museum Sciences Division, National Museums and Galleries of Northern Ireland, has posted photographs of heart's-ease taken by Graham Day and Stan Beesley. To view their photographs, click on the link:

http://www.habitas.org.uk/flora/photo.asp?item=2944

Click on the right side image to enlarge and view the next image.

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