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Butternut

Botanical: Juglans cinerea (LINN.)
Family: N.O. Juglandaceae

---Synonyms---White Walnut. Oilnut.
---Part Used---Bark of the root.
---Habitat---New Brunswick and mountains of Georgia.


---Description---The leaves possess much the same properties as the Black Walnut. The inner bark of the root is the best for medicinal use and should be collected in May or June; it is generally found in quills, curved strips or chips from 1/8 to 1/2 inch thick, deep brown in colour all through, outer surface smooth and a little warty, inner surface smooth and striate with fragments and thin stringy fibre, short fracture, weak and fibrous, odour slightly aromatic, taste bitter (astringent and acrid). The powdered drug is dark brown.

---Constituents---A bitter extractive, a large proportion of oily matter, a volatilizable acid and juglandic acid.

---Medicinal Action and Uses---Butternut is a mild cathartic like rhubarb; it does not constipate and is often used as a habitual laxative, also for dysentery and hypatic congestions. It has been employed as a vermifuge and is recommended for syphilis and old ulcers. The expressed oil of the fruit removes tapeworm. The fruit when halfgrown is made into pickles and when matured is a valuable article of diet. The bark is used for dyeing wool a dark brown colour but is inferior to that of the black walnut for this purpose. It is said to be rubefacient when applied to the skin.

---Preparations---Fluid extract, 1 to 2 drachms. Solid extract, 5 to 10 grains Juglandin, 2 to 5 grains.

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Bear in mind "A Modern Herbal" was written with the conventional wisdom of the early 1900's. This should be taken into account as some of the information may now be considered inaccurate, or not in accordance with modern medicine.

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