boneset
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boneset noun A perennial wild plant (Eupatorium spp) whose leaves are made into a tea often used to treat colds, coughs, influenza, fevers, and other ailments.
1863 Lister CW Letters (Oct 10) I want you to send me some bone set and get me some red peper. 1901 Lounsberry Sthn Wild Flowers 498 From time almost immemorial, boneset has been utilised to make a strengthening tea. It is something that the “yarb doctor” never forgets. As about borage and vervain, an old superstition exists that it will not thrive far away from human habitations. 1978 Montgomery White Pine Coll III-2 Everybody had their home remedies. Children, if they took a cold, they’d make them some boneset tea. Old-time people gathered their boneset in the summer and had it ready to make their tea ... I dreaded to take it, it’d get so hot, that, that boneset would, but mother would make us some boneset tea and sweeten it, make it taste good to us, we didn’t mind other than just the after effect of it, but it really done the work. 2006 Howell Medicinal Plants 60-61 Boneset has a long history of use in both European and American Indian herbal practice. The common name “boneset,” refers to its analgesic properties in treating fever symptoms. Patients given boneset reported that the herb seemed to relieve aching in the bones that accompanied many types of fever. American Indians used boneset to treat respiratory infections, fevers, poor digestion, and rheumatic pains. For hundreds of years, boneset was widely used in the treatment of influenza to relieve the body pains that accompanied high fevers. During the 1800s, boneset may have been one of the most frequently used household herbs in the eastern United States. Strong infusions were used to treat fever, colds, coughs, headache, and rheumatism.