This section is from the book "Trees And Tree-Planting", by James S. Brisbin. Also available from Amazon: Trees and Tree Planting.
This tree-like shrub is conspicuous for the beauty of its foliage and flowers. It has within a few years been advanced to the front rank among remedies employed to prevent miscarriages. Although for a long time enjoying a mere local reputation, in some sections, as a remedy in threatened abortion, it was not until the year 1876 that it was brought prominently to the notice of the medical profession, in a paper read before the American Gynaecological Society, by Professor E. W. Jenks, late of Detroit, but now of Chicago, Illinois. The high position occupied by Doctor Jenks in his profession vested his claims for black haw with much interest, and the tests to which they were soon after put have but tended to substantiate them. It acts as a sedative to that irritable condition of the womb which manifests itself both in habitual miscarriages and in painful menstruation, for which latter condition it is perhaps more valuable than even in threatened abortion.
The bark of the root is the part employed, and it is most conveniently given in the form of a fluid extract.
Black "Walnut {Juglans nigra) is not so extensively employed in medicine as its congener, the white walnut or butternut (Juglans cinerea). The expressed juice of the rind is said to have cured herpes, eczema, etc.; and a decoction of the rind possesses also the property of removing worms from the intestines. The leaves have been latterly very highly recommended as a remedy in scrofula.
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