Eighty-two varieties of Ribes have documented use in Herbal Medicine, but none are native to my regions. Two are naturalized, Ribes rubrum (Cultivated Currant) and Ribes uva-crispa (European Gooseberry).... and all are illegal to grow here because idiots run the state of NC and think these plants could infect Christmas trees with a disease, even though they grow side by side in TN with no problem! North Carolinians pay millions to be governed by morons who really don't care about us at all.... which is why approximately 50% of NC public school students GRADUATE functionally illiterate and unable to do basic math... but, of course our saintly teachers need a yearly raise while the rest of us are struggling just to survive, much less just find a cashier who can count change.
Dioscorides wrote of Ribes as Rhamnus, attributing to it some interesting uses:
Rhamnus is a shrub (growing around hedges) with upright stems and sharp thorns like oxyacantha, and the leaves are small, somewhat long, thick and soft. There is another besides this that is paler, and a third having darker and broader leaves, a little inclined to red; with long stems of five feet and more, thorny, with its hairs less strong and stiff. The fruit of it is broad, white and thin, shaped like a little pouch or whorl. The leaves of all of them are effective rubbed on for erysipelas [inflammatory skin disease] and herpes [viral skin infection]. It is said that the branches laid in gates or windows drive away the enchantments of witches. [If anyone picks up rhamnus while the moon is decreasing and holds it, it is effective against poison and mischief; and it is good for beasts to carry it around them; and for it to be put around ships; and it is good against headaches; and against devils and their assaults.] It is also called persephonion, or leucacantha, the Romans call it spina alba, some, spina cerualis, and the Africans call it atadin.
Gerard wrote of Gooseberry:
A. The fruit is used in divers sauces for meat, as those that are skilful in cookery can better tell than myself.
B. They are used in broths instead of Verjuice, which maketh the broth not only pleasant to the taste, but is greatly profitable to such as are troubled with a hot burning ague.
C. They are diversly eaten, but howsoever they be eaten they always engender raw and cold blood: they nourish nothing or very little: they also stay the belly, and stanch bleedings.
D. They stop the menses, or monthly sickeness, except they happen to be taken into a cold stomach, then do they not help, but rather clog or trouble the same by some manner of flux.
E. The ripe berries, as they are sweeter, so do they also little or nothing bind, and are something hot, and yield a little more nourishment than those that be not ripe, and the same not crude or raw; but these are seldom eaten or used as sauce.
F. The juice of the green Gooseberries cooleth all inflammations, erysipelas, and Saint Anthony's fire.
G. They provoke appetite and cool the vehement heat of the stomach and liver.
H. The young and tender leaves eaten raw in a salad, provoke urine, and drive forth the stone and gravel.
Culpepper wrote:
Government and virtues. They are under the dominion of Venus. The berries, while they are unripe, being scalded or baked, are good to stir up a fainting or decayed appetite, especially such whose stomachs are afflicted by choleric humours. They are excellently good to stay longings of women with child. You may keep them preserved with sugar all the year long. The decoction of the leaves of the tree cools hot swellings and inflammations; as also St. Anthony's fire. The ripe Gooseberries being eaten, are an excellent remedy to allay the violent heat both of the stomach and liver. The young and tender leaves break the stone, and expel gravel both from the kidneys and bladder. All the evil they do to the body of man is, they are supposed to breed crudities, and by crudities, worms.
Mrs. Grieve tells us:
The Black Currant is occasionally found wild in damp woods as far north as the middle of Scotland, but is considered to be a true native only in Yorkshire and the Lake District - when found apparently wild in other parts of the country, its presence is due to the agency of birds. It is easily distinguished at all seasons by the strong perfume of its buds and leaves.
This shrub shows the only instance of a process by which double flowers may become single, by changing petals into stamina. It has a solitary, one-flowered peduncle at the base of the raceme, and its leaves are dotted underneath.
It was not so popular originally as the Red and Whitc Currants, for Gerard describes the fruit as being 'of a stinking and somewhat loathing savour.'
The berries are sometimes put into brandy like Black Cherries. The Russians make wine of them, with or without honey or spirits, while in Siberia a drink is made of the leaves which, when young, make common spirits resemble brandy. An infusion of them is like green tea, and can change the flavour of black tea. Goats eat the leaves, and bears especially like the berries, which are supposed to have medicinal properties not possessed by others of the genus.
Medicinal Uses---Diuretic, diaphoretic, febrifuge.
The juice can be boiled to an extract with sugar, when it is called Rob, and is used for inflammatory sore throats. Excellent lozenges are also prepared from it.
The infusion of the leaves is cleansing and diuretic, while an infusion of the young roots is useful in eruptive fevers and the dysenteric fevers of cattle.
The raw juice is diuretic and diaphoretic, and is an excellent beverage in febrile diseases.
A decoction of the bark has been found of value in calculus, dropsy, and haemorrhoidal tumours.
RECIPES
Black Currant Jelly is deservedly prized for its usefulness in colds and is both laxative and cooling. It should not be made with too much sugar or its medicinal properties will be impaired. For a sore throat, take a tablespoonful of the jam or jelly; put it in a tumbler and fill the tumbler with boiling water. This 'Black Currant Tea' has a soothing, demulcent effect, taken several times in the day and drunk while hot.
A delicious wine can be made from the fruit. The following is a recipe from an old Cookery Book:
Black Currant Wine, very fine----To every 3 quarts of juice, put the same of water, unboiled; and to every 3 quarts of the liquor, add 3 lb . of very pure, moist sugar. Put it in a cask, preserving a little for filling up. Put the cask in a warm, dry room, and the liquor will ferment itself. Skim off the refuse, when the fermentation shall be over, and fill up with the reserved liquor. When it has ceased working, pour 3 quarts of brandy to 40 quarts of wine. Bung it close for nine months, then bottle it and drain the thick part through a jelly-bag, until it be clear, and bottle that. Keep it ten or twelve months.
Black Currant Cheese---is delicious and is made by putting equal parts of stalked currants and loaf sugar into a pan; place over low heat and stir until the sugar has dissolved, then bring slowly to the boil, stirring all the time. Remove all scum and simmer for an hour, stirring often. Rub the fruit through a hair sieve, return the puree to the pan, and stir until it boils, then put it into small pots and cover like jam.
Red Currant: This plant is equally at home in hedges and ditches, trained against the wall of a house, or as a shrub cultivated in gardens. It has straggling stems, three to five lobed leaves, yellowish-green flowers, and fruit in pendulous racemes. The smooth berries are always red in the wild state, but cultivation has added the white and champagne or flesh-coloured varieties. The White and Red Dutch Currants are regarded as the best. The English name was given because the berries were like the Corinth or Zante Grape, the currant of the shops. There are between thirty and forty kinds of currant recognized in catalogues. The fruit is a favourite for tarts andjellies, and being a very hardy plant, is within the reach of all. The juice is a pleasant acid in punch, and was a favourite ingredient in the coffee-houses of Paris, where the sweetened juice is still preferred as a beverage, to syrup of almonds.
Constituents---The juice is said to contain citric acid, malic acid, sugar, vegetable jelly and jam.
Medicinal Action and Uses---Refrigerant, aperient, antiscorbutic. The juice forms a refreshing drink in fever, and the jelly, made from equal weights of fruit and sugar, when eaten with 'high' meats, acts as an anti-putrescent. The wine made from white 'red' currants has been used for calculous affections.
In some cases the fruit causes flatulence and indigestion. It has frequently given much help in forms of visceral obstruction. The jelly is antiseptic, and will ease the pain of a burn and prevent the formation of blisters, if applied immediately. Some regard the leaves as having emmenagogue properties.
Poison and Antidotes---In common with other acidulous fruits, they must be turned out of an open tin immediately into a glass or earthenware dish, or the action of the acid combining with the surrounding air will begin to engender a deadly metallic poison.
Gooseberry: The well-known fruit grows on shrubs 3 to 4 feet high, with many branches, spreading prickles, and small, three- or five-lobed, hairy leaves. The flowers are green and hang singly or in pairs from little tufts of young leaves. The berries may be red, green, yellow, or white, hairy (Ribes grossularia) or smooth (R. uva crispa), over 200 varieties being recognized. It is especially cultivated in Lancashire and in the Lothians, in Scotland, the former district aiming at size, and the latter at flavour. The shrub may attain great age and size. In 1821, at Duffield, near Derby, a bush had been planted for at least forty-six years, and was 12 yards in circumference, while two, trained against a wall near Chesterfield, reached upwards of 50 feet in growth from end to end.
The yellow gooseberries have usually the richest flavour for dessert, and the best wine made from them very closely resembles champagne. The red are generally the most acid, supporting the fact that acids change vegetable blues to red.
The fruit does not appear to be highly valued in the South of Europe, but further North is very popular for tarts, pies, sauces, chutneys, jams, and dessert, also for preserving in bottles for winter use. The young and tender leaves are eaten in salads.
Constituents---Citric acid, pectuse, sugar, and mineral matters, the pectuse causing the fruit to be excellent for jellies.
Medicinal Action and Uses---The juice was formerly said to 'cure all inflammations.' In the green berries it is sub-acid and is corrective of putrescent foods, such as mackerel or goose. The light jelly made from the red berries is valuable for sedentary, plethoric, and bilious subjects.
As a spring medicine, gooseberry is more valuable than rhubarb. In one of the many books on the Plague, published in the sixteenth century, the patient is recommended to eat 'Goseberries.' Gerard, describing it under the name of 'Feaberry,' says:
'the fruit is much used in diners, sawces for meates and used in brothe instead of Verjuyce, which maketh the brothe not only pleasant to taste, but is greatly profitable to such as are troubled with a hot, burning ague.'
The leaves were formerly considered very wholesome and a corrective of gravel. An infusion taken before the monthly period will be found a useful tonic for growing girls.
Dosage---Of an infusion of 1 OZ. of dried leaves to 1 pint of water, 1 teacupful three times a day.
Brother Aloysius wrote:
Black Currant: Both the leaves and fruit are used medicinally. Both remedies are diuretic and recommended for painful urination… Black currant remedies are stomatic, diaphoretic, and good for throat infections, migraine, indigestion, dropsy and rheumatism.
Gooseberry: People with acid stomachs should not eat gooseberries. It is highly recommended for those suffering from involuntary seminal discharge or leukorrhea’ it also stimulates appetite.
King’s Medical Dispensatory of 1898 states:
The Black currant is a native of Europe and Siberia, growing in woods, cultivated in Europe and this country, and flowering in May. The Red currant grows in cold, damp woods and bogs in this country and Europe, and is extensively cultivated in gardens. It also flowers in May. The fruit of these two plants is the part used, and imparts its virtues to water. The juice of Red currants contains free acids (malic, citric, and tartaric acids, 1.5 to 3 per cent), sugar (4 to 7 per cent), vegetable jelly (pectin matter), gum, etc. That of Black currants contains the same, with the addition of a peculiar volatile principle, and a violet coloring matter.
Action, Medical Uses, and Dosage.—The juice of these berries, especially of the black currant, is said to be diuretic and diaphoretic. They may be made into a jelly, a jam, paste, etc., and are very useful in febrile and inflammatory diseases, and in hoarseness and affections of the throat. The raw juice is an excellent refrigerant beverage in febrile diseases. A decoction of the bark of the black currant has proved useful in calculous affections, dropsy, and hemorrhoidal tumors. It may be freely used. The French prepare from the berries an aromatized, fermented liquor called cassis (Amer. Jour. Pharm., 1888, p. 337).
Related Species.—Ribes floridum, L'Heritier, the Wild black currant of this country, possesses similar properties. It is a handsome shrub growing from 3 to 5 feet high, with leaves 1 or 2 inches long, and somewhat wider, subcordate: from 3 to 5-lobed; lobes acute, spreading, sprinkled on both sides with yellowish, resinous dots, just visible to the naked eye. Flowers greenish-yellow, subcampanulate, in pendulous, pubescent, many-flowered racemes. Calyx cylindrical; bracts linear, longer than the pedicels; petioles 1 or 2 inches long. Fruit obovoid, smooth, black, insipid. It flowers in May and June (W-G.).
Shepherdia argentea, Buffalo berry, Bull berry.—This shrub produces an acidulous fruit, resembling currants, being a little more acid (Trimble). The fruit is largely used as a food along the Upper Missouri, where it occurs in abundance.
Plants for A Future states:
Medicinal use of Red Currant: The fruit is antiscorbutic, aperient, depurative, digestive, diuretic, laxative, refrigerant and sialagogue. The leaves contain the toxin hydrogen cyanide. A concoction of them is used externally to relieve rheumatic symptoms. They are also used in poultices to relieve sprains or reduce the pain of dislocations.
Medicinal use of Gooseberry: The fruit is laxative. Stewed unripe gooseberries are used as a spring tonic to cleanse the system. The leaves have been used in the treatment of gravel. An infusion taken before the monthly periods is said to be a useful tonic for growing girls. The leaves contain tannin and have been used as an astringent to treat dysentery and wounds.
This article is an excerpt from
Medicinal Shrubs and Woody Vines of The American Southeast An Herbalist's Guide
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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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