Watts - Dictionary of Plant Lore

). Indeed, the poisonous oil of tansy has long been taken to induce abortion (Grigson). Exactly the same ambivalence is shown in beliefs concerning PARSLEY. It is an aid to conception on the one hand, and a contraceptive as well as an abortifacient on the other. Cambridgeshire girls would eat it three times a day to get an abortion, but the belief is actually widespread (Waring). Eating HORSERADISH leaves three times a day was a valued means in the Fen country of causing abortion (Porter. 1968), knowledge apparently not confined to East Anglia, for Whitlock mentions it as a Wiltshire remedy, if that is the right word to use.

) in the mid-19th century. SAVIN, probably the most notorious of the poisonous abortifacients, had been in use, as a matter of common knowledge, since ancient times, and was certainly well known in the 16th and 17th centuries, for instance, the scurrilous lines in Middletons play, A game of chess, act 1; sc. 2:

To gather fruit, find nothing but the savin-tree,

Too frequent in nuns orchards, and there planted

By all conjecture, to destroy fruit rather.

). Even ARNICA, dangerous as it is, has been used in folk medicine (Schauenberg & Paris). MARSH ROSEMARY (Ledum palustre) is another traditional abortifacient (Schauenberg & Paris), and even the dried flowers of FEVERFEW have been used in Europe (Lewis & Elvin-Lewis). A volatile oil made from the wood of VIRGINIAN JUNIPER, a close relative of Savin, has been used for abortions (Weiner); if this is the substance known as Red Cedar Wood Oil, then it must have been a thoroughly dangerous process (Usher). It is claimed that the Blackfoot Indians used the rhizome of SWEET FLAG to cause abortions (Johnston). That sounds highly unlikely, considering the plants universal usage as a mild carminative.

) with good reason, for it has often been used for abortions (Clair). French folklore insists that there was a law forbidding its cultivation in ordinary gardens. It was said that the specimen in the Paris Botanical Garden had to be enclosed to prevent pregnant girls from stealing it. In the Deux-Savres region of France it was believed that it caused any woman who merely touched it with the hem of her dress to miscarry (Sebillot). HEMP leaves were recommended in Cambridgeshire, the aim being to cause severe vomiting, often enough to result in a miscarriage. In the Scottish Highlands, it seems that the MOUNTAIN CLUBMOSS was used for the purpose. James Robertson, who toured the West Highlands and Islands in 1768, noted that the Lycopodium selago is said to be such a strong purge that it will bring on an abortion (quoted in Beith).

). BITING STONECROP is traditionally known as abortive (Schauenberg & Paris). A Middle English Rimed Medical Treatise has:

She that drynkes fumiter and the stoncrope

Schal neuere yong childe in cradell roke.

), surprising, perhaps, for a plant that is almost a panacea. But it is also an emmenagogue (Cameron), which would explain the usage.

It is said that a root decoction of the African tree CATCHTHORN (Zizyphus abyssinica) will cause abortion (Palgrave & Palgrave). BUSY LIZZIE was an African plant originally, and some groups used its root as an abortifacient (Watt & Breyer-Brandwijk). SCARLET LEADWORT (Plumbago indica) is a well known abortifacient in India and Malaysia, but it is a thoroughly dangerous practice, and could be lethal.

(P A Simpson). It is the root that is used, apparently by introduction into the vagina, and that would cause violent local inflammation (Gimlette). Its close relative, CEYLON LEADWORT (Plumbago zeylanica) is used in the same way in the Philippines (Watt & Breyer-Brandwijk), and in Guyana, where it is called Gully-root, the leaf decoction of GUINEA-HEN WEED (Petiveria alliacea) is used (Laguerre).

Abrus precatorius > PRECATORY BEAN