The many uses of Sow-bread

This pretty little Cyclamen has been flowering in our kitchen window, and giving us daily pleasure, for several months now. At an initial cost of 75p from the local supermarket it has been a bargain beyond measure.

Cyclamens are sometimes known as Sow-bread because pigs love to dig up and eat the wild tubers. When I looked up Sow-bread in Willich's 1802 Domestic Encyclopedia Or A Dictionary Of Facts, And Useful Knowledge, I was astonished at the many medicinal uses to which they were put by our forebears.

I quote:

"Sow-Bread, or Cyclamen europium, L. an exotic plant, sometimes cultivated in the gardens of the curious. There are five species of this diminutive herb, each of which produces several varieties; all bearing beautiful fragrant white, reddish, purple, or flesh-coloured flowers.

In a fresh state, the root of the sow-bread has an extremely acrid and burning taste; but, when dried, it is almost totally divested of such property. It is recommended as an errhine ; or to be formed into cataplasms, for discussing scirrhous and scrophulous tumors.

Internally taken, it operates slowly, though with great virulence, as a purgative and is apt to inflame the fauces and intestines : but, when roasted in embers, it may be eaten with safety. - In Germany, an ointment is prepared from these roots, which serves the useful purpose of relieving costiveness, when rubbed on the abdomen.

If, however, the root of the sow-bread should have been inadvertently swallowed, or eaten among other vegetables, it will be advisable either to take an immediate emetic: or, if some time hate elapsed, to drink large portions of oily and mucilaginous liquors, such as the solutions of mutton-suet in milk, of gum-arabic, salep-powder, and similar demulcents."

So, there you are!