https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2021/11/on-trail-of-wild-quinine.html
It was a bit of a challenge when a regular listener to my podcast asked me for information on Wild Quinine (Parthenium integrifolium). I was vaguely familiar with this herb and its use. I thought of it as being similar to feverfew and perhaps, boneset or joe pye weed. I had it associated, understandably, with herbs that are used for colds, flus and fevers. My interest was certainly piqued, any herb that could be a substitute for quinine made from Cinchona bark warrants investigation in an age of viral pandemics! Cinchona does not grow in my part of the world, so the prospect of an annual flowering plant that could be grown in the herb garden was exciting…. Yes, plant geeks get excited by such things.
Wild Quinine is a North American herb, so there was nothing I could find in the old European herbals. There also wasn’t much to be found in modern herbals. I found two entries regarding the modern use of this herb. Plants for A Future states:
A poultice made from the fresh leaves is applied to burns. The root is used in the treatment of inflammation of the urinary passages and kidneys, amenorrhoea and as a lithontripic. The flowering tops are used as a substitute for quinine in the treatment of intermittent fevers. One study suggests that use of the plant might stimulate the immune system.
By the way, “lithontripic” is a term that means the herb helps dissolve kidney and bladder stones. No one uses words like that anymore, and I wish we could retire them, as jargon creates a barrier to entry. It makes the professional herbalist sound impressive, while discouraging normal people from learning about herbs. Herb
books should, at least, define such terms as they go along instead of requiring people to constantly search a glossary. If we only write herb books for herbalists, we won’t
sell many books or help many people.
Peterson Field Guides Eastern/Central
Medicinal Plants includes a brief entry on this herb:
Catawbas poulticed fresh leaves on burns. Flowering tops were once used for intermittent fevers (such as malaria). Root used as a diuretic for kidney and bladder ailments, gonorrhea, One study suggests that wild quinine may stimulate the immune system.
I found no mention of Wild Quinine in the Thomsonian books. The Thomsonians were mostly based in New England, and the mention for this herb being used by the Catawbas
led me to believe it may have been used by the southeastern tribes and found its way into the pharmacopeia through its use by southern doctors. So, I turned to the massive, Resources of The Southern Fields and Forests, published in 1869. This classic work was written by a French Botanist, who was hired by the Confederacy to identify
native plants of the South that could replace imported medicines being blocked by the Union blockades:
Parthenium integrifolium. Dry soils. Mountains. Alabama and northward.
Recommended by Dr. Houlton as a powerful antiperiodic. The flowering tops, which have an intensely bitter taste, are the parts used, and two ounces of them in a dried state, given in the form of an infusion, are thought by Dr. Houlton to be the equivalent to twenty grains of sulphate of quinine. Thirty successive cases of periodic fever were cured by this remedy without any unpleasant effect upon the nervous system
Periodic fevers are a common symptom of malarial infection. These fevers that come every 3 or 4 days as the virus replicates. Quinine made from the bark of the cinchona tree was introduced to the Jesuits by the natives of Peru for use in treating such malarial fevers. Epidemics of malaria were common in early America, especially in the South. Finding alternatives to imported “Peruvian Bark” of cinchona, was of primary importance. It seems that Wild Quinine filled this role. As its range begins in Alabama and favors the lower mountains, it is very likely that the Catawba tribe introduced this herb as they had much contact with white settlers through their territory.
Kings American Dispensatory of 1898 tells us that this herb was, indeed, part of the American pharmacopoeia little more than 100 years ago. It seems that physicians circa 1900 regarded Wild Quinine as interchangeable with Feverfew:
Botanical name: Tanacetum parthenium Parthenium hysterophorus Parthenium integrifolium
Botanical Source.—Feverfew is a perennial, herbaceous plant, with a tapering root, and an erect, branched, leafy, round, furrowed stem., about 2 feet high. The leaves are alternate, petiolate, flat, bipinnate, or tripinnate, hoary green, the segments or leaflets inclining to ovate, decurrent, gashed, and dentate. The flowers are white and compound. The panicle is corymbose, sometimes compound; peduncles long-naked, single-flowered, and swelling upward. Flowerheads erect, about ½ inch broad, with a convex, yellow disk, and numerous short, broad, abrupt, 2-ribbed, white rays; often wanting; sometimes multiplied, and the disk being obliterated, constitutes a double flower. The involucre is hemispherical, imbricate, pubescent, with the scales scarious at the edge; the receptacle flat or convex, and naked; the achenia wingless, angular, uniform, crowned by a coronetted pappus, which is usually toothed, and occasionally auriculate
History.—This is a European plant, and is common to the United States; found occasionally in a wild state, but is generally cultivated in gardens, and flowers in June and July. It imparts its virtues to water, but much better to alcohol. Bees are said to dislike this plant very much, and a handful of the flower-heads will cause them to keep at a distance.
Chemical Composition.—J. Chautard, in 1863, obtained from this plant, by distillation with water, an oil which deposits upon standing in the cold, a laevorotatory camphor, pyrethrum-camphor (C10H16O), distinguished from ordinary camphor by its opposite optical rotation. Besides, the volatile oil contains an oxygenated liquid, and possibly a terpene hydrocarbon.
Action, Medical Uses, and Dosage.—Tonic, carminative, emmenagogue, vermifuge, and stimulant. This agent is one of the pleasantest of the tonics, influencing the whole intestinal tract, increasing the appetite, improving digestion, and promoting secretion, besides having a decided action upon the renal and cutaneous functions. The warm infusion is an excellent remedy in recent colds, flatulency, worms, atonic dyspepsia, irregular menstruation, nervous debility, hysteria, suppression of the urine, and in some febrile diseases. In hysteria or flatulency, 1 teaspoonful of the compound spirits of lavender forms a valuable addition to the dose of the infusion, which is from 2 to 4 fluid ounces. The cold infusion or extract makes a valuable tonic. The leaves in poultice are an excellent local application in severe pain or swelling of the bowels, etc.
Related Species.—Parthenium integrifolium, Linné; Cutting almond. This plant, also known by the name of Nephritic plant, is indigenous and perennial, with an erect, striate, pubescent stem, from 3 to 6 feet in height. Leaves alternate, lance-ovate, hispid-scabrous, coarsely dentate-crenate, coriaceous, lower ones petiolate, upper sessile, sometimes clasping, 4 to 12 inches long, about half as wide. Radical petioles a foot long. Heads many-flowered, tomentose, corymbed; ray-flowers 5, somewhat ligulate, fertile; disk-flowers tubular, sterile. Involucre hemispherical, 5-leaved; scales in 2 series, outer ovate, dilated, inner orbicular; receptacle minute, conical, chaffy; achenia 5, obovate, compressed, cohering with 2 contiguous paleae. It is sometimes known as Prairie dock (W.). This plant grows in the middle and western states, in dry soils, flowering from July to September. The root is the part used. Its growth is singular; it issues from a head or caudex, at first small, but gradually increases in size, and terminates very abruptly, giving off other roots of a similar form, each being a distinct root, about the size and shape of a radish, but growing horizontally, and sending up stems from near the large ends of the principal roots, which are blackish outside, and bluish-gray within. According to analysis by Frank B. Meyer (Amer. Jour. Pharm., 1881, p. 494), the bitterness of the drug is due to a crystallizable substance obtained by abstracting the powdered drug first with petroleum benzin, which removes a dark-green wax; then with ether, and taking up the ethereal extract with boiling water. The crystals turn deep-red with ferric chloride, and do not reduce Fehling's solution. The liquid preparations of the drug possess an agreeable orange-like odor. Diuretic. A cold infusion of the root, in wineglassful doses, 3 or 4 times a day, will be found very beneficial in heat of the urine, strangury, dysuria, gonorrhoea, gravel, and diseases of the kidneys and bladder generally. It is highly recommended by some practitioners in these diseases. Likewise said to be an aromatic bitter and stimulant. The flowering tops have been used as an antiperiodic. Two fluid ounces of their infusion have no unpleasant influence on the nervous system, and are said to be equal to 20 grains of sulphate of quinine (Houlton).
Other than a few obscure references here and there, throughout the last hundred years or so, that is all I could find. It seems that as Malaria was brought under control and became less common in America, herbs such as Wild Quinine fell out of common use. Moreover, Malaria began to mutate and become quinine resistant in nations where it remained common. Yet, some of the therapeutic treatments for COVID-19 and other viruses are similar in nature to quinine - chloroquine was discovered as a synthetic alternative to quinine, and that is the ancestor of hydroxychloroquine. I think modern herbalists would be well advised to study such herbs as Wild Quinine, to source the seeds and grow them in our own antiviral herb gardens. Viruses are, perhaps, the oldest form of life on earth… and they are not, technically even alive. They can survive in the arctic ice and int he lava of volcanoes. They mutated and adapt constantly. The pharmaceutical community cannot keep up even with the mutations of the seasonal flu. There may well come a time when a nearly forgotten herb in our little gardens may save us and the world.
Photo credit: By Peterwchen - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=94209527
Author: Judson Carroll. Judson Carroll is an Herbalist from the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. His weekly articles may be read at
http://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/
His weekly podcast may be heard at: www.spreaker.com/show/southern-appalachian-herbs
He offers free, weekly herb classes:
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His New Book is Herbal Medicine for Preppers, Homesteaders and
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You can read about and purchase Herbal Medicine for Preppers, Homesteaders and
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Also available on Amazon: Herbal Medicine for Preppers, Homesteaders and
Permaculture People: Carroll, Judson: 9798491252923: Amazon.com: Books
His other works include:
Look Up: The Medicinal
Trees of the American South, An Herbalist's Guide:
https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2021/06/paypal-safer-easier-way-to-pay-online.html
The Herbs and Weeds of Fr. Johannes Künzle:
https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2021/05/announcing-new-book-herbs-and-weeds-of.html
Disclaimer
The information on this site is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease or condition. Nothing on this site has been evaluated or approved by the FDA. I am not a doctor. The US government does not recognize the practice of herbal medicine and their is no governing body regulating herbalists. Therefore, I'm just a guy who studies herbs. I am not offering any advice. I won't even claim that anything I write is accurate or true! I can tell you what herbs have "traditionally been used for." I can tell you my own
experience and if I believe an herb helped me. I cannot, nor would I tell you to do the same. If you use any herb I, or anyone else, mentions you are treating yourself. You take full responsibility for your health. Humans are individuals and no two are identical. What works for me may not work for you. You may have an allergy, sensitivity or underlying condition that no one else shares and you don't even know about. Be careful with your health. By continuing to read my blog you agree to be responsible for yourself, do your own research, make your own choices and not to blame me for anything, ever.
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