HERB - Re: [Herbal_G] Sassafras
Rauthulfr
mlwolfe at uswest.net
Wed Oct 25 14:06:48 PDT 2000
Greetings from Rauthulfr
One should expect that a goodly number of New World plants were brought
into European Pharmacopeia in period and there is no reason to exclude
sassafras as one of these. After all, folks like Nicolas Monardes were
working on the New World "Materia Medica" in the mid-sixteenth
century. The jump in this case is that between the period ingredients
existing, and something resembling root beer existing in period. Certainly
there may have been developments from tinctured sassafras beverages into a
non-medicinal beverage later on. But as with many herbal medicinals, their
uses changed much over time. One of the "errors of logic" which I've seen
in A&S competitions is working backwards from a final product through the
documentation to prove that the particular product existed in period. To
some extent this follows the old SCA maxim: If they would have had it, they
would have used it. The extension of that maxim according to this logic is
that they had the stuff and used it like this project has.
The challenge is not to document the ingredients for root beer, the
challenge is to discover its presence prior to 1600 or 1650 (depending upon
which Kingdom you live in (Ansteorra tends to hold to 1600; An Tir holds to
1650, for example.))
YIS
R
At 12:25 AM 10/25/00 -0700, you wrote:
>well to tired to dig really deep
>but there may be confusion .
>i have found sassafras and sarsaparilla (saspirilla??)
>the later is told of as follows
>history and folk lore
>brought from the new world in 1563 to Spain ....
>thought to be good for syphilis......
>over rated claims ....
>much used for skin complaints ...
>root was the original flavouring for root beer.
>
>encyclopedia of medical plants
>Andrew chevalier
>DK publishing
>ISBN 0-7894-0672
>1st American Ed 1996
RauthulfR Meistari inn Orthstori (OL, MC)
An Tir Kingdom Chirurgeon
or, non-SCA: Michael Wolfe M. A. I. S. AB-
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