Diseased throat glands, scrofula.
NICOTIANA GLAUCA
(Ind. Tee-baat)
American Tobacco Tree. This tree, very common along the Pacific coast, grows from Santa Barbara southward to the end of Lower California, and the Mexican peninsula. The tree grows in terraced gorges and ravines and is rarely to be found anywhere else.
The leaves were steamed and applied externally as a poultice over the swollen parts of the throat caused by inflammation of the throat glands, and also for scrofula. While the latter malady didn’t exist among the Indians, yet they treated and cured some of the whites who had it, with Nicotiana glauca.
It was also steamed into the body of those suffering from rheumatism and proved there also its value to many human beings.
I have once before spoken of other plants useful for the same purpose, but as this plant has something to recommend it for the last-named ailment, it is appropriate to mention it again in connection with scrofula and inflammation of the throat glands.
To the plant serving all these cases equally well, we must give credit where credit is due, even at the cost of repetition, in order to give the reader a fair understanding of the various diseases a plant may be good for.
Surely a wonderful provision made by nature!