# Boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum)

*Thoroughwort, ague-weed; *Eupatorium perfoliatum* L.*

**Known today as.** *Eupatorium perfoliatum*, of the family Compositae, a stout, hairy perennial two to four feet high of low meadows and damp ground in North America from Nova Scotia to Florida, flowering from July to September in flat heads of many small white florets. Its leaves are unmistakable: each opposite pair is joined at the base so that the stem seems to pass through a single leaf, whence *perfoliatum*. The leaves and flowering tops are the drug; they are slightly aromatic, astringent, and strongly bitter, and Grieve names a bitter principle, eupatorin.

Kind: Plant

> **Caution.** Grieve and King’s both record that in large doses, or as a strong hot infusion, it is emetic and purgative. None of the sources read for this entry reports on its safety as a modern medicine.

## 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.”

## 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.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **eupatorin**: a bitter glucosidal principle
- **tannic acid**: some
- **volatile oil**: 

**Mechanism.** Not established in the sources read for this entry.

**Standing.** There is no European monograph. Official in the United States Pharmacopoeia in Grieve’s day; no clinical trial of the herb was found for this entry.

## What lore surrounds it?

Grieve corrects the earlier books: many of them called boneset a diuretic for dropsy, “but this is an error,” that property belonging to its purple-flowered relative, gravel root.

## 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.”

## Sources

- Grieve, M. *A Modern Herbal*, “Boneset.” As published on botanical.com.
- Felter, H. W., & Lloyd, J. U. (1898). *King’s American Dispensatory*, vol. 1, “Eupatorium.” Internet Archive, kingsamericandis01kinguoft.
- Grieve, M. *A Modern Herbal*, “Boneset.” As published on botanical.com.
- Felter, H. W., & Lloyd, J. U. (1898). *King’s American Dispensatory*, vol. 1, “Eupatorium.” Internet Archive, kingsamericandis01kinguoft.

---

*Boneset.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-17. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/boneset

Historical description, not medical advice.