Wigan Album
Wartime booklet of Herbs
3 CommentsPhoto: Veronica B
Item #: 32885
I bet you have come across some interesting information in this booklet Veronica.x
In the early 1970s and wanting to cut down on tobacco I would often smoke herbal cigarettes in between tobacco ones, and on occasions I would be asked to leave pubs by the landlord or bar steward with them being convinced I was smoking marijuana, even if I showed them the pack. Also in the 1960s there was Bravo cigarettes that were made not from herbs, but lettuce leaves, you only tried them once - probably why they ceased production.
The quote about smoking herbal mixtures to relieve Asthma reminded me of the Asthma cigarettes and Asthma Remedy powder that Potter and Clarke once produced, you would think that inhaling smoke from burning herbs would make a persons asthma worse, however it was claimed to actually clear lungs from phlegm, the herb used was Stramonium a common wasteland plant also called Thorn Apple. Info here: https://wellcomecollection.org/works/frya8nfz/images?id=rnu85byc
It is a really interesting book Edna, I just hate the thought of it being thrown away. I like to think of my grandmother reading it in her old rocking chair! She knew every herb for all the ailments as many did then. She didn't believe in doctors, sad to say and ordered him out of the house when he said she needed to go in hospital before she died. She died in her own bed...she would probably have lived longer if she had taken his advice.
No wonder they suspected you were smoking 'weed' Cyril, basically that's what tobacco is really.
I'll take the book to the History Museum sometime to see if it's of interest to them,