1812: Of Herbs Whose Virtues Turn Vicious in the Wrong Dish
It has ever appeared to me a questionable, though not an uninteresting, point how far a Christian householder may proceed in the study of dangerous simples without trespass upon either conscience or law. Our forefathers, being less encumbered with pamphlets and more familiar with Providence, kept arsenic in the same cupboard as treacle, and yet contrived to die, for the most part, of quite ordinary causes. In this more enlightened age, when every parish supports at least one aspiring chemist and several opinionated aunts, it is perhaps needful to prefix a few words of caution to any catalogue of herbs whose misapplication might startle the coroner.
First, therefore, I affirm that the present work is designed for the preservation, not the destruction, of domestic peace. The plants herein described, whether for wholesome or dubious use, are all under the hand of Almighty God before they are under ours, and, rightly considered, are intended less to shorten our neighbours than to lengthen our patience. If some possess a power that inordinate malice might misdirect, that is a reproach to malice, not to the Maker of the leaf. Fire may warm or consume; the poker, as my late uncle justly observed, is equally suited to stir the coals or to occasion inquests. We do not therefore banish the poker from the hearth, but admonish the household.
Secondly, I humbly remind the reader that many of the most violent vegetable forces have been pressed into the service of mercy. Foxglove, Deadly Nightshade, and the rest of that sinister choir have been constrained in proper dose to steady the heart, to lull pain, and to pluck sufferers, as it were, back from the very lip of the grave. It is not the plant that is sinful, but the measure and the intention. Every garden of any pretension must harbour both the useful and the perilous; the difference between remedy and ruin is often no thicker than the line a Christian draws in her own conscience.
Thirdly, I entreat that no person unversed in the rudiments of physic, and still less any person in a temper of resentment, attempt preparations of the stronger class. A broth made in haste has disagreed with many a gentleman; there is, therefore, no need to encourage more deliberate experiments. Let it be understood throughout this Compendium that whatsoever might in a malignant hand become an instrument of harm is here set forth that the prudent may recognise, respect, and regulate such growths, not that the foolish may practise at subtlety. If Providence designs a man’s removal, He is seldom at a loss for means, and does not, so far as I have observed, require the amateur assistance of relatives with strained eyesight and imperfect scales.
Lastly, I would urge the devout reader to consider that knowledge, when received with gratitude and governed with charity, is itself a kind of prayer. To understand the humours of a root, the temper of a flower, the upward striving of every green thing that breaks the soil, is to read a marginal note in the great book of Creation. There is neither piety in ignorance nor safety in it, for more mistakes proceed from not knowing than from knowing too well. If these pages, which deal candidly with herbs of double nature, serve to keep one child from chewing a fair but fatal leaf, or one housewife from mis-copying a dangerous receipt, they will have justified their place upon the shelf beside the Bible and the bread-jar.
I would therefore submit this Household Herbal to the judgement of reasonable Christians, not as a manual for cunning, but as a fence against it; not as a provocation to crime, but as a small, sober lantern carried through that twilight walk which lies between necessity and curiosity. Should any reader, after perusing the more perilous entries, feel an unseemly interest in the capacities of their neighbours’ teacups, I recommend a brisk walk, a basin of thin porridge, and a visit to the churchyard, where the stones sufficiently attest that the world is already well provided with occasions of death.
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