VIRGINIAN SKULLCAP / Scutellaria laterifolia

Cherokee women used to drink the herb infusion to cure suppressed menstruation, and there is a recipe for St Vitus’s Dance from Alabama: “one ounce skullcap, one ounce feverweed (Verbena syriaca, perhaps?), one ounce Lady’s Slipper (Cypripedium). Take half of each one, put in a quart jar filled with boiling water, and seal. Let it stand for two hours, then take a wineglassful three times a day” (R B Browne). This plant has been called Mad-dog, or Mad-dog Herb (House; Lloyd), because it was used to treat rabies, after a Dr van der Veer experimented with it in 1772 (Weiner).

VIRGINIAN JUNIPER / Juniperus virginiana

Sometimes known as Pencil Juniper or Pencil Cedar – no other wood has been found that has just the right physical properties for the casing of lead pencils (Harper). But by the end of World War II, it had become extremely scarce, so it had to be replaced for pencil wood by Red Cedar (Calocedrus decurrens). (Lewington). Clothes chests are made of it, too, for the smell of the wood repels moths. Smoking crushed juniper berries is an American domestic medicine for catarrh (H M Hyatt), and earlier, Indian peoples had used it for a variety of ailments. Both leaves and berries boiled together were taken for coughs. Twigs were burned and the smoke inhaled for a cold in the head (Gilmore). The Kiowa chewed the berries as a remedy for canker sores in the mouth (Vestal & Schultes), while the Natchez used it in some way for mumps (Weiner).

VIPER’S GRASS / Scorzonera humilis

The common name shows that this would be a herb with which to treat snakebite. See Gerard, for example: “It is reported by those of great judgement, that Viper’s-grasse is most excellent against the infections of the plague, and all poysons of venomous beasts, and especially to cure the bitings of vipers, if the juyce or herbe be drunke…”.

VERTIGO

In some parts of Germany, to cure dizziness, it was recommended that the patient should run, naked, after sunset, through a field of FLAX; the flax will take the dizziness to itself. (Dyer. 1889). The seeds of MELEGUETA PEPPER, with a leaf of Sweet basil, ground together and cooked in palm oil, form a Yoruba (Nigeria) medicine to cure giddiness (Verger). The juice of GREEN PURSLANE is recommended in Mayan medical texts for giddiness (Roys).

VARICOSE VEINS

According to Somerset practice, an ointment made from MALLOW or MARSH MALLOW roots and unsalted lard was used to treat the condition, equally useful for sore feet, too (Tongue. 1965; Page 1978), and bathing the feet in which the flowers of MARIGOLD had been infused, was another Somerset way of dealing with the problem (Tongue. 1965). At one time the roots of BRISTLY OX-TONGUE were used, bound to the affected part (see Tusser). CYPRESS cones were also used (Palaiseul).

VAMPIRES

GARLIC tied in bundles over a house door will keep out a vampire, and stuffed in the mouth of a corpse will keep the vampire (if there were suspicions that the deceased might be one) quiet in his grave (Gifford). These are Balkan superstitions, and there were Roumanian beliefs that vampires left their graves on St Andrew’s Eve, and walked about the houses in which they used to live. So before nightfall every woman took some garlic and anointed the door locks and window casements with it (Miles). In Hungarian folklore, a vampire’s grave could be recognised by two holes on the tombstone. Stop these holes with garlic and you could make sure the vampire would stay there.

The correct wood to be driven through a vampire’s heart is ASH, though hawthorn and rowan are also mentioned. In the Balkans, it was a BLACKTHORN stake that impaled a vampire (Kemp).

VIRGINIAN SKULLCAP

VIRGINIAN SKULLCAP has been called Maddog, or Mad-dog Herb (House, Lloyd), for it was used to treat the condition, after a Dr van der Veer experimented with it in 1772 (Weiner). Hoosier home medicine uses ELECAMPANE. The roots have to be boiled in a pint of milk down to half a pint, and the patient has to take a third of the result every other morning, and eat no food until 4 pm on those days. It is effective, they claim, provided it is started withing 24 hours of the accident (Tyler).

VEGETABLE MARROW

Cucurbita pepo
Marrow seeds, in the form of an infusion as well as in a pulp, have for long been a
domestic remedy for internal parasites (Lloyd). As with pumpkin seeds, they are an efficient diuretic. The American Indians knew this perfectly well, too – the Menomini, for instance, used the pulverized seeds for any kind of urinary complaint (Corlett). A decoction of the flowers is given in Trinidad as a measles remedy (L M Perry).