"Impune tutum per nemus arbutos
Quaerunt latentes, et thyma deviae
Olentis uxores mariti."
Wild Thyme is subject to variations in the size and colour of its flowers, as well as in the habits of the varieties.
This wild Thyme bears also the appellation, "Mother of Thyme," which should be "Mother Thyme," in allusion to its medicinal influence on the womb, an organ which the older writers always termed the "Mother." Isidore tells that the wild Thyme was called in Latin, Matris animula, quod menstrua movet. Platearius says of it: Serpyllum matricem comfortat et mundificat. Mulieres Saliternitanoe hoc fomento multum utuntur.
Dr. Neovius writes enthusiastically in a Finnish Journal on the virtues of common Thyme in combating whooping cough. He has found that if given fresh, from an ounce and a half to six ounces a day, mixed [562] with a little syrup, regularly for some weeks, it is practically a specific. If taken from the first, the symptoms vanish in two or three days, and in a fortnight the disease is expelled. The simplicity, harmlessness, and cheapness of this remedy are great supporters of its claims.
Other titles of the herb are Pulial mountain, and creeping Thyme. It is anti-spasmodic, and good for nervous or hysterical headaches, for flatulence, and the headache which follows inebriation. The infusion may be profitably applied for healing skin eruptions of various characters.
Virgil mentions (in Eclogue xi., lines 10, 11) the restorative value of Thyme against fatigue:—
"Thestylis et rapido fessis messoribus oestu
Allia, Serpyllumque herbas contundit olentes."
Or,
"Thestlis for mowers tired with parching heat
Garlic and Thyme, strong smelling herbs, doth beat."
Tournefort writes: "A conserve made from the flowers and leaves of wild Thyme (Serpyllum) relieves those troubled with the falling sickness, whilst the distilled oil promotes the monthly flow in women."