White balsam

Relaxed, boggy sore throat with a dry, tickling sensation and low-grade irritation

Chronic, mucous-tinged diarrhea in a debilitated or atonic patient

Overview. Gnaphalium polycephalum, now classified botanically as Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium, is a soft, woolly-leaved annual of the aster family native to eastern North America, found in old fields and dry open ground. The whole flowering plant, gray with fine down, is gathered for use. It held a modest but steady place in nineteenth century physiomedicalist and Eclectic practice as a gentle relaxant astringent for sore throat, mouth complaints and mild catarrhal conditions, and was sometimes smoked or used as a snuff for head colds and neuralgic pain.

Clinical Notes. This is a gentle herb, useful where a patient's throat or gut tissue is relaxed and boggy rather than acutely inflamed. The classic picture is a sore throat that feels dry and tickly rather than sharply painful, often in someone run down or convalescent, where a warm infusion taken frequently or used as a gargle settles the irritation and tightens lax mucosa.

Properties and Uses. This plant combines relaxing and stimulating properties with a moderate portion of demulcent quality. In cold preparations, its action is mainly expended upon mucous membranes; and as it soothes and strengthens these tissues, it has been pronounced astringent, though it is faintly tonic and not drying.

Action, Medical Uses, and Dosage. Anodyne, astringent, and pectoral. A decoction has proved beneficial in diarrhoea and dysentery, and in pulmonary affections. Externally, it forms an excellent poultice in sprains, bruises, boils, painful swellings, etc., and is said to produce sleep when applied externally to the head, even in cases where a poultice of hops has failed. Rafinesque is authority for the statement that the Indians, for a trifle, would allow rattlesnakes to bite them, to show that they could cure the bite at once with this plant. Decoction (℥j to aqua Oj) freely.