Hardhack

Profuse, watery diarrhea in an infant or debilitated patient with prostration and loss of tissue tone

Chronic, relaxed bowel complaints with a tendency to low-grade bleeding rather than acute inflammation

Overview. Spiraea tomentosa, known to nineteenth century American physicians as hardhack or steeplebush, is a small shrub of wet meadows and pastures across eastern North America, easily recognized by the dense white or rust colored woolly underside of its leaves. The leaf and root were the parts favored by the Eclectic physicians, who valued the plant chiefly as a gentle but reliable astringent tonic for the digestive tract. It holds a modest but well documented place in nineteenth and early twentieth century American botanical medicine rather than in any older or non-Western tradition.

Clinical Notes. Hardhack was a household and dispensary standby for chronic or subacute diarrhea, especially in children and in the elderly or debilitated, where the picture was one of relaxed, atonic bowel tissue rather than acute inflammatory heat.