
Native to the Mediterranean, calendula arrived in Northeast America in the hands of early European settlers before 1670. Over the next 200 years, its flowers blossomed as a mainstay of cultivated gardens, notably admired as a “great part of the Summer.” In fact, calendula was so common that the early American materia medica often declared that it needed no introduction at all. Interestingly though, many of these early herbals described calendula’s color as yellow, rather than the bright orange that it’s renowned for today.
Calendula’s earliest use in America leaned more toward culinary than medicinal. Called the “poor man’s saffron,” its petals were used to add color to cheese, butter, and custards in place of the more-expensive saffron. Not surprisingly, with the support of early American herbal practitioners, the plant’s use bounced from culinary back to medicinal.
The herbal practitioners of the day remained keenly aware of calendula’s historical reverence and medicinal value. In 1909, Lloyd and Lloyd notably proclaimed, “Calendula officinalis has been known, practically, from the beginning of documentary records in scientific or medicinal lines” (p. 20). During this time period, calendula’s applications varied, touching on differing therapeutic corners. Among these atypical early preparations were treatments for sore, inflamed eyes and for “costiveness,” an outdated term for constipation. Grieve further confirmed that calendula “was considered formerly to have much value as an aperient.” Fever was also frequently treated with calendula in early America. Specifically, calendula’s use was indicated as a diaphoretic, especially when fevers accompanied skin eruptions, as with smallpox and measles.
Not surprisingly, calendula’s external would-healing abilities reigned supreme—as they do today. Many doctors boasted of the plant’s unrivaled capabilities as a local remedy following surgical operations and its application for gangrene, both for which calendula prevented suppuration (pus formation) and promoted rapid wound healing. Felter and Lloyd went so far as to say that “now hundreds of advocates of calendula endorse its use” as a vulnerary.
Calendula’s use in early America as an external vulnerary almost seamless matches its best-known application today: an unsurpassed topical used to speed healing of wounds, bruises, and burns. Its historical use as an aperient for constipation also mirrors our modern application for a variety of gastrointestinal inflammation ailments.
As with all things, the seeds of our herbal knowledge were sown deep within our historical past. And the knowledge found in the early American herbals was—and continues to be—essential to the refinement of our modern applications as herbalists.
References: Blackwell, E. (1737); Easley, T., & Horne, S. (2016); Felter, H. W., & Lloyd, J. U. (1898); Goss, I. J. M. (1877); Grieve, M. (1931); Hill, J. (1812); Hoffman, D. (2003); Lloyd & Lloyd. (1909); Pickering, C. (1879).
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