In this fourth year of native plant gardening it was more of a challenge to find new species which meet clay soil, deer resistance, drought tolerance, and shady locale criteria. Two chosen: zigzag goldenrod and black cohosh, which also is known as bugbane or black snakeroot. The one is pollinator friendly and the other is host to three different butterflies. As it turns out, black cohosh, Actaea racemosa (native to Appalachian and Pennsylvania woodlands but found in the Midwest) also has remarkable backstory in the history of medicine in America. It was already in the ground earlier in spring before being surprised to find it mentioned recently in a book on Kindle.
Current debate about abortion often expresses frustration about going “way back” to the 1970s, but impression from reading: 19th century America feels surprisingly current. It no longer involves black cohosh, but even the medicinal history of this plant is directly related to a (seemingly) different current debate: about concern over pharmaceuticals like Pfizer, Sanofi, Johnson & Johnson and Roche making huge profits (e.g., “AARP’S ‘Stop Rx Greed’ Campaign Kicks Off,” Starting Line). From Mohr’s book about history of abortion in America, apparently wealth gained through pharmacy was happening 150+ years ago and directly influenced how our particular American medical profession was formed, especially in relation to a “booming pharmaceutical business in abortifacient preparations,” one of the first specialties in American medical history.
Wednesday, June 26, 2019, local, 13:31 CDT:
Mars in natal 8th sextile natal Mars in 10th
Quote: From one “of the most moralistic health books of the 1870s, Leonard Thresher’s 1875 Ladies’ Private Medical Guide,” in Abortion in America: The Origins and Evolution of National Policy, 1800–1900, James C. Mohr, Oxford University Press, 1978.