Avens

Sore, relaxed throat with copious thin mucous discharge, worse on swallowing

Loose, watery, chronic diarrhea in a person with generally lax, boggy tissue rather than acute inflammation

Overview. Geum virginianum, known in older American practice as avens, chocolate root, or throat root, is a low, bristly-hairy perennial of the rose family found in damp woods and low ground across the northern and eastern United States and Canada. The root is the part used: small, hard, contorted, and brown, with a faint clove-like aroma when fresh due to volatile constituents released on drying or extraction. Physiomedicalist and Eclectic practitioners of the nineteenth century placed it among the astringent tonics, close in use to its European relatives Geum urbanum and Geum rivale, and reached for it wherever tissue was relaxed, boggy, and prone to passive discharge or hemorrhage.

Clinical Notes. Avens root is a straightforward tannin-rich astringent, used much as one would use agrimony or cranesbill: to tighten and tone relaxed mucous membrane and check excessive, passive discharge. Its traditional niche, hence the name throat root, was the sore, boggy throat with free mucus rather than the hot, dry, acutely inflamed throat, where a more diffusive or anti-inflammatory herb would suit better.

Properties and Uses. This root is a mild astringent, of a pleasant taste, and soothing and tonic in action. It is not so drying as it is strengthening to the mucous membranes; and this fact, together with its mildness and pleasantness, makes it an article of peculiar worth.

Properties and Uses. This root is relaxing and stimulating, acting rather promptly, and chiefly influencing the skin and mucous membranes. In doses of thirty grains or more, repeated every fifteen minutes, it is a prompt emetic, operating mildly, and not tasting so unpleasant nor causing so much nauseous relaxation as lobelia.