Note 66 — PETER KALM’s TRAVELS. (continued 2)

This Thuya is made use of for several medicinal purposes. The commandant of Fort St. Frederic, M. de Lusignan could never sufficiently praise its excellence for rheumatic pains. He told me he had often seen it tried, with remarkable good success, upon several persons, in the following manner. The fresh leaves are pounded in a mortar, and mixed with hog’s grease, or any other grease. This is boiled together till it becomes a salve, which is spread on linen, and applied to the part where the pain is. The salve gives certain relief in a short time. Against violent pains, which move up and down in the thighs, and sometimes spread all over the body, they recommend the following remedy. Take of the leaves of a kind of Polypody66 four-fifths, and of the cones of the Thuya one-fifth, both reduced to a coarse powder by themselves, and mixed together afterwards. Then pour milk-warm water on it, so as to make a poultice, which spread on linen, and wrap it round the body: but as the poultice burns like fire, they commonly lay a cloth between it and the body, otherwise it would burn and scorch the skin. I have heard this remedy praised beyond measure, by people who said they had experienced its good effects. An Iroquese Indian told me, that a decoction of Thuya leaves was used as a remedy for the cough. In the neighbourhood of Saratoga, they use this decoction in the intermitting fevers.