Roses
Certain curative properties are possessed both by the Briar, or wild
Dog Rose of our country hedges, and by the cultivated varieties of
this queen of flowers in our Roseries. The word Rose means red,
from the Greek [464] rodon, connected also with rota, a wheel,
which resembles the outline of a Rose. The name Briar is from the
Latin bruarium, the waste land on which it grows. The first Rose
of a dark red colour, is hel
to have sprung from the blood of
Adonis. The fruit of the wild Rose, which is so familiar to every
admirer of our hedgerows in the summer, and which is the common
progenitor of all Roses, is named Hips. Heps maketh, says Gerard,
most pleasant meats or banquetting dishes, as tarts and such like,
the concoction whereof I commit to the cunning cook, and teeth to
eat them in the rich man's mouth.
Hips, derived from the old Saxon, hiupa, jupe, signifies the Briar
rather than its fruit. They are called in some parts, choops, or
hoops. The woolly down which surrounds the seeds within the
Hips serves admirably for dispelling round worms, on which it acts
mechanically without irritating the mucous membrane which lines
the bowels.
When fully ripe and softened by frost, the Hips, after removal of
their hard seeds, and when plenty of sugar is added, make a very
nice confection, which the Swiss and Germans eat at dessert, and
which forms an agreeable substitute for tomato sauce. Apothecaries
employ this conserve in the preparing of electuaries, and as a basis
for pills. They also officinally use the petals of the Cabbage Rose
(Centifolia) for making Rose water, and the petals of the Red
Rose (Gallica) for a cooling infusion, the brilliant colour of which
is much improved by adding some diluted sulphuric acid; and of
these petals they further direct a syrup to be concocted.
Next in development to the Dog Rose, or Hound's Rose, comes the
Sweetbriar (Eglantine), with a delicate perfume contained under its
glandular leaves. [465] Fragrantia ejus olei omnia alia odoramenta
superest. This (Rosa rubiginosa) grows chiefly on chalk as a
bushy shrub. Its poetic title, Eglantine, is a corruption of the Latin
aculeius, prickly. A legend tells that Christ's crown of thorns was
made from the Rose-briar, about which it has been beautifully
said:--
Men sow the thorns on Jesus' brow,
But Angels saw the Roses.
Pliny tells a remarkable story of a soldier of the Praetorian guard,
who was cured of hydrophobia, against all hope, by taking an
extract of the root of the Kunoroddon, Dog Rose, in obedience to
the prayer of his mother, to whom the remedy was revealed in a
dream; and he says further, that it likewise restored whoever tried
it afterwards. Hence came the title Canina. Parceque elle a
longtemps ete en vogue pour guerir de la rage.
But the term, Dog Rose, is generally thought to merely signify a
flower of lower quality than the nobler Roses of garden culture.
The five graceful fringed leaflets which form the special beauty of
the Eglantine flower and bud, have given rise to the following Latin
enigma (translated):--
Of us five brothers at the same time born,
Two from our birthday always beards have worn:
On other two none ever have appeared,
While our fifth brother wears but half a beard.
From Roses the Romans prepared wine and confections, also subtle
scents, sweet-smelling oil, and medicines. The petals of the crimson
French Rose, which is grown freely in our gardens, have been
esteemed of signal efficacy in consumption of the lungs [466] since
the time of Avicenna, A.D. 1020, who states that he cured many
patients by prescribing as much of the conserve as they could
manage to swallow daily. It was combined with milk, or with some
other light nutriment; and generally from thirty to forty pounds of
this medicine had to be consumed before the cure was complete.
Julius Caesar hid his baldness at the age of thirty with Roman Roses.
Take, says an old MS. recipe of Lady Somerset's, Red Rose buds,
and clyp of the tops, and put them in a mortar with ye waight of
double refined sugar; beat them very small together, then put it up;
must rest three full months, stirring onces a day. This is good
against the falling sickness.
It is remarkable that while the blossoms of the Rose Order present
various shades of yellow, white, and red, blue is altogether foreign
to them, and unknown among them.
As the Thistle is symbolical of Scotland, the Leek of Wales, and the
Shamrock of Ireland: so the sweet, pure, simple, honest Rose of our
woods is the apt-chosen emblem of Saint George, and the frank,
bonny, blushing badge of Merrie England.
The petals of the Cabbage Rose (Centifolia), which are closely
folded over each other like the leaves of a cabbage, have a slight
laxative action, and are used for making Rose-water by distillation,
whether when fresh, or after being preserved by admixture with
common salt. This perfumed water has long enjoyed a reputation for
the cure of inflamed eyes, more commonly when combined with
zinc, or with sugar of lead. Hahnemann quotes the same established
practice as a tacit avowal that there exists in the leaves of the Rose
some healing power for certain diseased conditions of [567] the
eyes, which virtue is really founded on the homoeopathic property
possessed by the Rose, of exciting a species of ophthalmia in
healthy persons; as was observed by Echtius, Ledelius, and Rau.
It is recorded also in his Organon of Medicine, that persons are
sometimes found to faint at the smell of Roses (or, as Pope puts it,
to die of a rose in aromatic pain); whereas the Princess Maria,
cured her brother, the Emperor Alexius, who suffered from
faintings, by sprinkling him with Rose-water, in the presence of his
aunt Eudoxia.
The wealthy Greeks and Romans strewed Roses on the tombs of
departed friends, whilst poorer persona could only afford a tablet
at the grave bearing the prayer:
Sparge, precor, rosas super mea busta, viator.
Scatter Roses, I beseech you, over my ashes, O pitiful passer-by.
But nowadays many persons have an aversion to throwing a Rose
into a grave, or even letting one fall in.
Roses and reticence of speech have been linked together since the
time of Harpocrates, whom Cupid bribed to silence by the gift of a
golden Rose-bud; and therefore it became customary at Roman
feasts to suspend over the table a flower of this kind as a hint that
the convivial sayings which were then interchanged wore not to be
talked of outside. What was spoken sub vino was not to be
published sub divo:
Est rosa flos veneris, cujus quo facta laterent
Harpocrati, matris dona, dicavit amor:
Inde rosam mensis hospes suspendid amicis,
Conviva ut sub ea dicta tacenda sciat.
[468] For the same reason the Rose is found sculptured on the
ceilings of banqueting rooms; and in 1526 it began to be placed over
Confessionals. Thus it has come about that the Rose is held to be the
symbol of secrecy, as well as the flower of love, and the emblem of
beauty: so that the significant phrase sub rosa,--under the Rose,--
conveys a recognised meaning, understood, and respected by
everyone. The bed of Roses is not altogether a poetic fiction. In old
days the Sybarites slept upon mattresses which were stuffed with
Rose petals: and the like are now made for persons of rank on the
Nile.
A memorial brass over the tomb of Abbot Kirton, in Westminster
Abbey, bears testimony to the high value he attached during life to
Roses curatively:--
Sis, Rosa, flos florum, morbis medicina meoium.
Many country persons believe, that if Roses and Violets are
plentiful in the autumn, some epidemic may be expected presently.
But this conclusion must be founded like that which says, a green
winter makes a fat churchyard, on the fact that humid warmth
continued on late in the year tends to engender putrid ferments, and
to weaken the bodily vigour.
Attar of Roses is a costly product, because consisting of the
comparatively few oil globules found floating on the surface of a
considerable volume of Rose water thrice distilled. It takes five
hundredweight of Rose petals to produce one drachm by weight of
the finest Attar, which is preserved in small bottles made of rock
crystal. The scent of the minutest particle of the genuine essence is
very powerful and enduring:--
You may break, you may ruin, the vase if you will,
But the scent of the Roses will hang round it still.
The inscription, Rosamundi, non Rosa munda, was graven on the
tomb of fair Rosamund, the inamorata of Henry the Seventh:--
Hic jacet in tomba Rosa Mundi, non Rosa munda;
Non redolet, sed olet quae redolere solet.
Here Rose the graced, not Rose the chaste, reposes;
The smell that rises is no smell of Roses.
In Sussex, the peculiar excrescence which is often found on the
Briar, as caused by the puncture of an insect, and which is known as
the canker, or robin redbreast's cushion, is frequently worn round
the neck as a protective amulet against whooping cough. This was
called in the old Pharmacopeias Bedeguar, and was famous for its
astringent properties. Hans Andersen names it the Rose King's
beard.
The Rosary was introduced by St. Dominick to commemorate his
having been shown a chaplet of Roses by the Blessed Virgin. It
consisted formerly of a string of beads made of Rose leaves tightly
pressed into round moulds and strung together, when real Roses
could not be had. The use of a chaplet of beads for recording the
number of prayers recited is of Eastern origin from the time of the
Egyptian Anchorites.
The Rock Rose (a Cistus), grows commonly in our hilly pastures on
a soil of chalk, or gravel, bearing clusters of large, bright, yellow
flowers, from a small branching shrub. These flowers expand only
in the sunshine, and have stamens which, if lightly touched, spread
out, and lie down on the petals. The plant proves medicinally useful,
particularly if grown in a soil containing magnesia. A tincture is
prepared (H.) from the whole plant, English or Canadian, which is
useful for curing shingles, on the principle of its producing, when
taken by healthy provers in doses of various [470] potencies, a
cutaneous outbreak on the trunk of the body closely resembling the
characteristic symptoms of shingles, whilst attended with nervous
distress, and with much burning of the affected skin. The plant has
likewise a popular reputation for healing scrofula, and its tincture is
beneficial for reducing enlarged glands, as of the neck and throat;
also for strumous swelling of the knee joint, as well as of other
joints. It is a helianthemum of the Sunflower tribe.
The Canadian Rock Rose is called Frostwort and Frostweed,
because crystals of ice shoot from the cracked bark below the stem
during freezing weather in the autumn.
A decoction of our plant has proved useful in prurigo (itching), and
as a gargle for the sore throat of scarlet fever. For shingles, from
five to ten drops of the tincture, third decimal strength, should be
given with a spoonful of water three times a day.