The County Herb Committees were a nationwide medicinal plant collecting scheme, established by the British
Ministry of Health during the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
.
History
The County Herb Committees were set up at a time when the German occupation of France and the disruption of shipping lanes interfered with drug supplies. As in the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, the British found that the Germans still largely dominated the pharmaceutical industry and consequently by the early 1940s there were critical shortages of essential medicines in hospitals and homes across Britain.
First the Vegetable Drugs Committee (VDC) of the
Ministry of Supply
The Ministry of Supply (MoS) was a department of the UK government formed in 1939 to co-ordinate the supply of equipment to all three British armed forces, headed by the Minister of Supply. A separate ministry, however, was responsible for aircr ...
was established in March, 1941, and the invovlement of the
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. An internationally important botanical research and education institution, it employs 1,100 ...
, was led by Dr.
Ronald Melville, an economic botanist and pharmacist.
A total of 70 Committees were set up across England, Scotland and Wales, and grants of a total of £1,191 were made available to set up drying centres that could deal directly with trading companies. The first drying centre in Oxfordshire was in the home of Dr. W. O. James and his wife Gladys in the village of
Islip
Islip may refer to:
Places England
* Islip, Northamptonshire
*Islip, Oxfordshire
United States
*Islip, New York, a town in Suffolk County
** Islip (hamlet), New York, located in the above town
**Central Islip, New York, a hamlet and census-d ...
, as well as in the
Oxford Botanic Garden
The University of Oxford Botanic Garden is the oldest botanic garden in Great Britain and one of the oldest scientific gardens in the world. The garden was founded in 1621 as a physic garden growing plants for medicinal research. Today it cont ...
where they set up the Oxford Medicinal Plants Scheme. By the end of the war, there were 250 drying centres across country.
Guides for herb collectors
The committee found that a number of imported drugs were derived from plants that were also native to Britain. By 1941 they were publishing guides for herb collectors in the rural British communities. Various groups such as
Boy Scouts
Boy Scouts may refer to:
* Boy Scout, a participant in the Boy Scout Movement.
* Scouting, also known as the Boy Scout Movement.
* An organisation in the Scouting Movement, although many of these organizations also have female members. There are ...
,
Girl Guides
Girl Guides (known as Girl Scouts in the United States and some other countries) is a worldwide movement, originally and largely still designed for girls and women only. The movement began in 1909 when girls requested to join the then-grassroot ...
,
Women's Institute
The Women's Institute (WI) is a community-based organisation for women in the United Kingdom, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand. The movement was founded in Stoney Creek, Ontario, Canada, by Erland and Janet Lee with Adelaide Hoodless being th ...
s and the elderly, were enlisted as collectors by Sir
Arthur William Hill
Sir Arthur William Hill (11 October 1875, in Watford – 3 November 1941, in Richmond) was Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and a noted botanist and taxonomist.
The only son of Daniel Hill, he attended Marlborough College where hi ...
, Director of Kew.
In 1941 the wholesale pharmaceutical company
Brome and Schimmer published a booklet called ''Herb Gathering'', describing the many roots, flowers and herbs needed by the Ministry of Health, and how to collect and dry them.
The
National Federation of Women's Institutes
The Women's Institute (WI) is a community-based organisation for women in the United Kingdom, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand. The movement was founded in Stoney Creek, Ontario, Canada, by Erland and Janet Lee with Adelaide Hoodless being th ...
cooperated with the Ministry of Supply and the County Herb Committees by collecting medicinal herbs. Horticulturist
Elizabeth Hess was the Agricultural Organiser for the Women's Institute. The Ministry of Supply issued monthly bulletins for rural herb committees that provided information for collecting herbs in different areas. The first bulletin in 1942 described how in Derbyshire:
The
cardiac glycoside
Cardiac glycosides are a class of organic compounds that increase the output force of the heart and decrease its rate of contractions by inhibiting the cellular sodium-potassium ATPase pump. Their beneficial medical uses are as treatments for co ...
s in foxgloves degrade if the plants are not dried carefully. A leaflet from Kew advised that collectors spread the plants on racks to dry in a
coke-heated shed at 90-100 degrees
Fahrenheit
The Fahrenheit scale () is a temperature scale based on one proposed in 1724 by the physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686–1736). It uses the degree Fahrenheit (symbol: °F) as the unit. Several accounts of how he originally defined his ...
.
A pamphlet that the Vegetable Drugs Committee published in 1941 stated that the most essential medicinal plants needed were
belladonna,
colchicum
''Colchicum'' ( or ) is a genus of perennial flowering plants containing around 160 species which grow from bulb-like corms. It is a member of the botanical family Colchicaceae, and is native to West Asia, Europe, parts of the Mediterranean coas ...
,
digitalis
''Digitalis'' ( or ) is a genus of about 20 species of herbaceous perennial plants, shrubs, and biennials, commonly called foxgloves.
''Digitalis'' is native to Europe, western Asia, and northwestern Africa. The flowers are tubular in sha ...
,
hyoscyamus
''Hyoscyamus'' — known as the henbanes — is a small genus of flowering plants in the nightshade family, Solanaceae. It comprises 11 species, all of which are toxic. It, along with other genera in the same family, is a source of the drug hy ...
,
stramonium
''Datura stramonium'', known by the common names thorn apple, jimsonweed (jimson weed), devil's snare, or devil's trumpet, is a poisonous flowering plant of the nightshade family Solanaceae. It is a species belonging to the '' Datura'' genus ...
and
valerian, and that the countries of origin for these plants had previously been Hungary, Italy, Germany, and Yugoslavia.
References
Works cited
*
*
*
*
*
*
Further reading
*
*
External links
*
* {{Cite web , title=Judith Sumner Research , url=https://www.judithsumner.com/the-blog , url-status=dead , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170323053606/https://www.judithsumner.com/the-blog , archive-date=2017-03-23 , access-date=2017-03-22
Botany
Pharmaceutical industry in the United Kingdom
Medicinal plants
United Kingdom in World War II
Herbalism organizations