Medicinal and aromatic plants – industrial profiles

William Salmon (1644–1713)
A seventeenth century commentator and the writer of a Herbal, he states that lavender was ‘good
against the biting of serpents, mad dogs and other venomous creatures (a dramatic way of
describing bites), being given inwardly and applied poultice-wise. The spirituous tincture of the
dried seeds or leaves, if given prudently, cures the hysterick fits though vehement and of long
standing’. And it is ‘abstersive (detergent), aperitive (laxative), astringent, cephalic (for
megraine), discursive (dispels), diuretick (stimulates urine), incisive, neurotick (nervine), stom-
atick (stomachic), cordial (gentle or used to make a cordial), nephretick (kidney-action), hyster-
ick, alexipharmick (?) and analeptick (?) and antiparalitick (for paralysis), being of very subtil
and thin parts.’ He approved it for ‘convulsions, epilepsy’s, palsies, tremblings, vertigoes, lethar-
gies, swoonings, hysteric fits, other diseases of the head, brain, nerves, womb, also bites of mad
dogs as well as snake bites’.
He also wrote of Hiera Picra, which is an antidote and cure all with multiple ingredients very
similar to Treacle or Theriac made under seal by various cities including London, the origins of
which go back the ancient Greeks.
The growing of lavender in history
In the nineteenth century 
L. vera
was considered indigenous to the mountainous regions of the
countries bordering the western half of the Mediterranean basin. Occurring in Eastern Spain,
History of usage of
Lavandula
species
41

---

Southern France (extending Northward to Lyons and Dauphiny), Upper Italy, Corsica, Calabria
and Northern Africa. In cultivation it grows very well in the open air throughout the greater part
of Germany and as far North as Norway. Dried lavender flowers were the object of some trade in
the South of Europe. Lavender and orange flowers were exported form France in 1870 to the extent
of 110,958 kg (244,741 lbs), chiefly to the Barbary states (N. Africa), Turkey and America. There
is no data given for the amount of volatile lavender oil imported into England, where it was much
used as a perfume and was considered to have stimulant properties (Fluckiger and Hanbury, 1885).