Sir Thomas Browne said that in his day the Elder had become a famous medicine for quinsies, sore throats, and strangulations.
The inspissated juice or "rob" extracted from the crushed berries, and simmered with white sugar, is cordial, aperient, and diuretic. This has long been a [167] popular English remedy, taken hot at bed-time, when a cold is caught. One or two tablespoonfuls are mixed with a tumblerful of very hot water. It promotes perspiration, and is demulcent to the chest. Five pounds of the fresh berries are to be used with one pound of loaf sugar, and the juice should be evaporated to the thickness of honey.
"The recent rob of the Elder spread thick upon a slice of bread and eaten before other dishes," says Dr. Blochwich, 1760, "is our wives' domestic medicine, which they use likewise in their infants and children whose bellies are stop't longer than ordinary; for this juice is most pleasant and familiar to children; or to loosen the belly drink a draught of the wine at your breakfast, or use the conserve of the buds."
Also a capital wine, which may well pass for Frontignac, is commonly made from the fresh berries, with raisins, sugar, and spices. When well brewed, and three years' old, it constitutes English port. "A cup of mulled Elder wine, served with nutmeg and sippets of toast, just before going to bed on a cold wintry night, is a thing," as Cobbet said, "to be run for." The juice of Elder root, if taken in a dose of one or two tablespoonfuls when fasting, acts as a strong aperient, being "the most excellent purger of watery humours in the world, and very singular against dropsy, if taken once in the week."
John Evelyn, in his Sylva (1729), said of the Elder: "If the medicinal properties of its leaves, bark, and berries, were fully known, I cannot tell what our countrymen could ail, for which he might not fetch a remedy from every hedge, either for sickness or wounds." "The buds boiled in water gruel have effected wonders in a fever," "and an extract composed [168] of the berries greatly assists longevity. Indeed,"—so famous is the story of Neander— "this is a catholicum against all infirmities whatever." "The leaves, though somewhat rank of smell, are otherwise, as indeed is the entire shrub, of a very sovereign virtue. The springbuds are excellently wholesome in pottage; and small ale, in which Elder flowers have been infused, are esteemed by many so salubrious, that this is to be had in most of the eating houses about our town."
"It were likewise profitable for the scabby if they made a sallet of those young buds, who in the beginning of the spring doe bud forth together with those outbreakings and pustules of the skin, which by the singular favour of nature is contemporaneous; these being sometimes macerated a little in hot water, together with oyle, salt, and vinegar, and sometimes eaten. It purgeth the belly, and freeth the blood from salt and serous humours" (1760). Further, "there be nothing more excellent to ease the pains of the haemorrhoids than a fomentation made of the flowers of the Elder and Verbusie, or Honeysuckle, in water or milk, for in a short time it easeth the greatest pain."
If the green leaves are warmed between two hot tiles, and applied to the forehead, they will promptly relieve nervous headache. In Germany the Elder is regarded with much respect. From its leaves a fever drink is made; from its berries a sour preserve, and a wonder-working electuary; whilst the moon-shaped clusters of its aromatic flowers, being somewhat narcotic, are of service in baking small cakes.
The Romans made use of the black Elder juice as a hair dye. From the flowers a fragrant water is now distilled as a perfume; and a gently stimulating ointment is prepared with lard for dressing burns and [169] scalds. Another ointment, concocted from the green berries, with camphor and lard, is ordered by the London College as curative of piles. "The leaves of Elder boiled soft, and with a little linseed oil added thereto, if then laid upon a piece of scarlet or red cloth, and applied to piles as hot as this can be suffered, being removed when cold, and replaced by one such cloth after another upon the diseased part by the space of an hour, and in the end some bound to the place, and the patient put warm to bed. This hath not yet failed at the first dressing to cure the disease, but if the patient be dressed twice, it must needs cure them if the first fail." The Elder was named Eldrun and Burtre by the Anglo-Saxons. It is now called Bourtree in Scotland, from the central pith in the younger branches which children bore out so as to make pop guns:—
"Bour tree—Bour tree: crooked rung,
Never straight, and never strong;
Ever bush, and never tree
Since our Lord was nailed on thee."
The Elder is specially abundant in Kent around Folkestone. By the
Gauls it was called "Scovies," and by the Britons "Iscaw."