Cough cures

I currently have a very nasty cold hence being late with this blog. So this blog is about some of the medicinal cures for coughs that Anderson recorded.

Glycyrrhuiza glabia is one medicinal plant that he noted cured coughs and pectoral complaints and was popular with all member of colonial Vincentian society; we know this plant as liquorice. He also noted that Wild Liquorice (Albus precatorus), known on the island as Crabs Eye Vine, helped coughs and 'complaints of the Breast'. This too was listed as a Medicinal plant. He did caution though that the seeds if eaten were poisonous but were in much demand for making necklaces; image below.

However, a plant that Anderson listed as only Esculent, he noted was a good cure for coughs; Arachis hypogoea (ground nut or peanut) was considered wholesome for those with coughs and pectoral complaints. Another plant was the Sisyrinchium palinifolium. This he said only grew in the gardens of St Vincent's Indigenous people; today known as the Garifuna and Kalinago.

Anderson's manuscripts provide a wealth of information about cures of the day, but also about enslaved African and Indigenous plant knowledge; whilst some of this may well have been passed on through oral history, it may well be that his work records some information lost to the centuries.

Image of Albus precatorus seeds from Cabidigitallibrary