Boneset

Boneset: what was it used for?

A remedy for fevers and colds. Grieve calls it stimulant, febrifuge, and laxative, a mild tonic in moderate doses and diaphoretic as a warm infusion, much esteemed in intermittent fever and used for muscular rheumatism, colds, catarrh, influenza, and the indigestion of old people; in large doses emetic and purgative. King’s explains that the hot infusion was given in intermittent fever to make the patient vomit and sweat freely, and the cold infusion between the attacks as a tonic, and that it was useful in irregular agues “which that drug,” quinine, “does not seem to reach.”

Boneset: what does modern science say?

No European monograph for it was found for this entry. The searches of Europe PMC made for this entry found no clinical trial of the herb itself; the recent clinical studies under its name concern a homoeopathic dilution, a different preparation, and are not used here.

Boneset: what did the older authorities say?

Grieve, A Modern Herbal (1931)

“Boneset was a favourite medicine of the North American Indians, who called it by a name that is equivalent to ‘Ague-weed,’” and probably no plant in American domestic practice had more frequent use; Grieve adds that it was largely used by Black Americans in the South as a remedy in all fevers. The name, she reports, is said to come from its value in a kind of influenza, common in the United States, “which from the pain attending it was commonly called Break-Bone Fever.”