Constipation, Effective Remedy, in the most Stubborn Cases of

"Fluid Extract Cascara Sagrada 1 ounce
Fluid Extract Wahoo 1 ounce
Neutralizing Cordial 2 ounces

Mix."

Adults may take a teaspoonful of this mixture before retiring, this will
be found very effective in the most stubborn cases of constipation.

Source: Mother's Remedies: Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remidies from Mothers of the United States and Canada, T. J. Ritter

Constipation, Substitute for Castor Oil

"Take good clean figs, and stew them very slowly in olive oil until plump and tender, then add a little honey and a little lemon juice, and allow the syrup to boil thick.
Remarks.--Keep this in a covered glass jar and when a dose of castor oil seems necessary, a single fig will answer every purpose. Not unpleasant to take."

Source: Mother's Remedies: Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remidies from Mothers of the United States and Canada, T. J. Ritter

Constipation, Hot Water for

"A cup of hot water, as hot as one can drink it, a half an hour before breakfast." The hot water thoroughly rinses the stomach and helps the bowels to carry off all the impurities.

Source: Mother's Remedies: Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remidies from Mothers of the United States and Canada, T. J. Ritter

Ingredients: Lettuce

LETTUCE.

Our garden Lettuce is a cultivated variety of the wild, or strong-scented Lettuce (Lactuca virosa), which grows, with prickly leaves, on banks and waysides in chalky districts throughout England and Wales. It belongs to the Composite order of plants, and contains the medicinal properties of the plant more actively than does the Lettuce produced for the kitchen. An older form of the name is Lettouce, which is still retained in Scotland.

Chemically the wild Lettuce contains lactucin, lactucopricin, asparagin, mannite, albumen, gum, and resin, together with oxalic, malic, and citric acids; thus possessing virtues for easing pain, and inducing sleep. The cultivated Lettuce which comes to our tables retains these same properties, but in a very modified degree, since the formidable principles have become as completely toned down and guileless in the garden product as were the child-like manners and the pensive smile of Bret Harte's Heathen Chinee.

Each plant derives its name, lactuca, from its milky juice; in Latin lactis; and in Greek, galaktos (taking the genitive case). This juice, when withdrawn from the cut or incised stalks and stems of the wild Lettuce, is milky at first, and afterwards becomes brown, like opium, being then known (when dried into a kind of gum) as lactucarium. From three to eight grains of this gum, if taken at bedtime, will allay the wakefulness which follows over-excitement of brain. A similar lactucarium, got from the dried milk of the cultivated garden Lettuce, is so mild a sedative as to be suitable for restless infants; and two grains thereof may be safely given to a young child for soothing it to sleep.

The wild Lettuce is rather laxative; with which view a decoction of the leaves is sometimes taken as a drink to remedy constipation, and intestinal difficulties, as also to allay feverish pains. The plant was mentioned as acting thus in an epigram by Martial (Libr. VI., Sq.).

"Prima tibi dabitur ventro lactuca movendo
Utilis, et porris fila resecta suis."

Gerard said: "Being in some degree laxative and aperient, the cultivated Lettuce is very proper for hot bilious dispositions;" and Parkinson adds (1640): "Lettuce eaten raw or boyled, helpeth to loosen the belly, and the boyled more than the raw." It was known as the "Milk Plant" to Dioscorides and Theophrastus, and was much esteemed by the Romans to be eaten after a debauch of wine, or as a sedative for inducing sleep. But a prejudice against it was entertained for a time as venerem enervans, and therefore mortuorum cibi, "food for the dead."

Apuleius says, that when the eagle desires to fly to a great height, and to get a clear view of the extensive prospect below him, he first plucks a leaf of the wild Lettuce and touches his eyes with the juice thereof, by which means he obtains the widest perspicuity of vision. "Dicunt aquilam quum in altum volare voluerit ut prospiciat rerum naturas lactucoe sylvaticoe folium evellere et succo ejus sibi oculos tangere, et maximam inde claritudinem accipere."

After the death of Adonis, Venus is related to have thrown herself on a bed of lettuces to assuage her grief. "In lactucâ occultatum a Venere Adonin--cecinit Callimachus--quod allegoricé interpretatus Athenoeus illuc referendum putat quod in venerem hebetiores fiunt lactucas vescentes assidue."

The Pythagoreans called this plant "the Eunuch"; and there is a saying in Surrey, "O'er much Lettuce in the garden will stop a young wife's bearing." During the middle ages it was thought an evil spirit lurked among the Lettuces adverse to mothers, and causing grievous ills to new-born infants.

The Romans, in the reign of Domitian, had the lettuce prepared with eggs, and served with the last course at their tables, so as to stimulate their appetites afresh. Martial wonders that it had since then become customary to take it rather at the beginning of the meal:--

"Claudere quae caenas lactuca solebat avorum
Dic mihi cur nostras inchoat illa dapes."

Antoninus Musa cured Caesar Augustus of hypochondriasis by means of this plant.

The most common variety of the wild Lettuce, improved by frequent cultivation, is the Cabbage Lettuce, or Roman, "which is the best to boil, stew, or put into hodge-podge." Different sorts of the Cos Lettuce follow next onwards. The Lactuca sylvatica is a variety of the wild Lettuce producing similar effects. From this a medicinal tincture (H.) is prepared, and an extract from the flowering herb is given in doses of from five to fifteen grains. No attempt was made to cultivate the Lettuce in this country until the fourth year of Elizabeth's reign.

When bleached by gardeners the lettuce becomes tender, sweet, and succulent, being easily digested, even by dyspeptic persons, as to its crisp, leafy parts, but not its hard stalk. It now contains but little nutriment of any sort, but supplies some mineral salts, especially nitre. In the stem there still lingers a small quantity of the sleep-inducing principle, "lactucarin," particularly when the plant is flowering. Galen, when sleepless from advanced age and infirmities, with hard study, took decoction of the Lettuce at night; and Pope says, with reference to our garden sort:--

"If you want rest,
Lettuce, and cowslip wine:--'probatum est.'"

But if Lettuces are taken at supper with this view of promoting sleep, they should be had without any vinegar, which neutralises their soporific qualities. "Sleep," said Sir Thomas Brown, "is so like death that I dare not trust it without my prayers."

Some persons suppose that when artificially blanched the plant is less wholesome than if left to grow naturally in the garden, especially if its ready digestibility by those of sensitive stomachs be correctly attributed to the slightly narcotic principle. It was taken uncooked by the Hebrews with the Paschal lamb.

John Evelyn writes enthusiastically about it in his Book of Sallets: "So harmless is it that it may safely be eaten raw in fevers; it allays heat, bridles choler, extinguishes thirst, excites appetite, kindly nourishes, and, above all, represses vapours, conciliates sleep, and mitigates pain, besides the effect it has upon the morals-- temperance and chastity."

"Galen (whose beloved sallet it was) says it breeds the most laudable blood. No marvel, then, that Lettuces were by the ancients called sanoe by way of eminency, and were so highly valued by the great Augustus that, attributing to them his recovery from a dangerous sickness, it is reported he erected a statue and built an altar to this noble plant." Likewise, "Tacitus, spending almost nothing at his frugal table in other dainties, was yet so great a friend to the Lettuce that he used to say of his prodigality in its purchase, Summi se mercari illas sumitus effusione." Probably the Lettuce of Greece was more active than our indigenous, or cultivated plant.

By way of admonition as to care in preparing the Lettuce for table, Dr. King Chambers has said (Diet in Health and Disease), "The consumption of Lettuce by the working man with his tea is an increasing habit worthy of all encouragement. But the said working man must be warned of the importance of washing the material of his meal. This hint is given in view of the frequent occurrence of the large round worm in the labouring population of some agricultural counties, Oxfordshire for instance, where unwashed Lettuce is largely eaten." Young Lettuces may be raised in forty-eight-hours by first steeping the seed in brandy and then sowing it in a hot-house.

The seeds of the garden Lettuce are emollient, and when rubbed up with water make a pleasant emulsion, which contains nothing of the milky, laxative bitterness furnished by the leaves and stalk. This emulsion resembles that of almonds, but is even more cooling, and therefore a better medicine in disorders arising from acrimony and irritation.

From the Lactuca virosa, or strong-scented wild Lettuce, a medicinal tincture (H.) is prepared, using the whole plant. On the principle of treating with this tincture, when diluted, such toxic effects as too large doses of the juice would bring about, a slow pulse, with a disposition to stupor, and sleepy weakness, are successfully met by its use. Also a medicinal extract is made by druggists from the wild Lettuce, and given in doses of from three to ten grains for the medicinal purposes which have been particularised, and to remove a dull, heavy headache.

"The garden Lettuce is good," as Pliny said, "for burnings and scaldings if the leaves be laid thereon, with salt (sic), before the blisters do appear." "By reason," concludes Evelyn, "too, of its soporiferous quality, the Lettuce ever was, and still continues, the principal foundation of the universal tribe of Sallets, which cools and refreshes, besides its other properties, and therefore was held in such high esteem by the ancients, that divers of the Valerian family dignified and ennobled their name with that of Lactucinii." It is botanically distinguished as the Lactuca sativa, "from the plenty of milk," says "Adam in Eden" (W. Coles), "that it hath, and causeth."

Lambs' Lettuce, or Corn Salad, is a distinct plant, one of the Valerian tribe, which was formerly classed as a Lettuce, by name, Lactuca agnina, either because it appears about the time when lambs (agni) are dropped, or because it is a favourite food of lambs.

The French call this salade de Prètre, "monks' salad," and in reference thereto an old writer has said: "It certainly deserves a place among the penitential herbs, for the stomach that admits it is apt to cry peccavi."

The same plant is also known by the title of the White Pot Herb, in contrast to the Olus atrum, or Black Pot Herb. It grows wild in the banks of hedges and waste cornfields, and is cultivated in our kitchen gardens as a salad herb, the Milk Grass, being called botanically the Valerianella olitoria, and having been in request as a spring medicine among country folk in former days. By genus it is a Fedia, and bears diminutive white flowers resembling glass. Gerard says: "We know the Lambs' Lettuce as Loblollie; and it serves in winter as a salad herb, among others none of the worst." In France it goes by the names manche and broussette. A medicinal tincture is made (H.) from the fresh root.

The black pot-herb--so called from the dark colour of its fruit--is an umbelliferous plant, (Smyrnium olusatrum) or Alexanders, often found in the vicinity of abbeys, and probably therefore held in former repute by the Monks. Its names are derived from Smyrna, myrrh, in allusion to the odour of the plant; and from Macedonicum, or the parsley of Macedon, Alexander's country. The herb was also known as Stanmarch. It grows on waste places by rivers near the sea, having been formerly cultivated like celery, which has now supplanted it. When boiled it is eaten with avidity by sailors returning from long voyages, who happen to land at the South Western corner of Anglesea.

Source: Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure, William Thomas Fernie

Constipation, Bran as a Cure for

"Take each night two dessertspoonfuls of bran. Take a spoonful at a time and chew it slowly and thoroughly and swallow." This simple remedy has been known to cure cases of long standing if kept up faithfully for a while.

Source: Mother's Remedies: Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remidies from Mothers of the United States and Canada, T. J. Ritter

Sick Headache, a Favorite Remedy for

"Aconite liniment or aconite rubbed on the forehead will relieve the pain in the head almost instantly. One drop of the tincture of nux vomica in a teaspoonful of water every five or ten minutes will quickly relieve." Nux vomica is good only when the headache comes from constipation and stomach trouble and too high living.

Source: Mother's Remedies: Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remidies from Mothers of the United States and Canada, T. J. Ritter

Constipation, a Good Substitute for Pills and Drugs

"Two ounces each of figs, dates, raisins, and prunes (without pits), one-half ounce senna leaves. Grind through meat chopper, and mix thoroughly by kneading. Break off pieces (about a level teaspoonful) and form into tablets. Wrap each in a wax paper and keep in covered glass jars, in a cool place. Dose.-- One at night to keep the bowels regular. Very pleasant to take."

Source: Mother's Remedies: Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remidies from Mothers of the United States and Canada, T. J. Ritter

Constipation, Remedy from a Mother at Lee, Massachusetts

"Senna Leaves 1/2 pound
English Currants 1/2 pound
Figs 1/4 pound
Brown Sugar 1 large cup

Source: Mother's Remedies: Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remidies from Mothers of the United States and Canada, T. J. Ritter

Piles, the Cold Water Cure for

"Take about a half pint of cold water and use as an injection every morning before trying to have a movement of the bowels." This simple treatment has cured many cases where the stronger medicines did not help.

Source: Mother's Remedies: Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remidies from Mothers of the United States and Canada, T. J. Ritter

Constipation, Herb Tea for

"One ounce senna leaves steeped in one-half pint of hot water, with a teaspoonful of ginger powdered; strain. This is a most certain and effective purge, and mild in its action upon the bowels. Dose:-- A cupful at bedtime. This is far superior to salts."

Source: Mother's Remedies: Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remidies from Mothers of the United States and Canada, T. J. Ritter

Constipation, Glycerin and Witch-Hazel Remedy Where Castor Oil Failed

"Equal parts of glycerin and witch-hazel." Dose:-- One teaspoonful every night at bedtime. In severe cases where you have been unable to get a movement of the bowels by the use of other cathartics, take a teaspoonful every two hours until the bowels move freely. This remedy has been known to cure when castor oil and other remedies have failed.

Source: Mother's Remedies: Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remidies from Mothers of the United States and Canada, T. J. Ritter

Constipation in Babies, A Pleasant Treatment for

"One-half teaspoonful olive oil, one-half teaspoonful orange juice, three times a day after feeding."

Source: Mother's Remedies: Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remidies from Mothers of the United States and Canada, T. J. Ritter

Constipation in Children, Figs as a Medicine for

"Grind up equal amounts of figs and senna leaves, put in closed jar and eat dry when needed." This will be found especially good for children, and most of them like it.

Source: Mother's Remedies: Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remidies from Mothers of the United States and Canada, T. J. Ritter

Constipation in Children, Prunes a Medicine for

"Abate heat and gently open the bowels by the use of prunes. These should be fed to children more often. This would often prevent sickness. A very useful way of administering prunes as a medicine is to simmer for one-half hour, a few in water enough to cover, with 1/2 oz. senna leaves; remove the prunes, allow to dry and let the child eat them when needed. This is very good."

Source: Mother's Remedies: Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remidies from Mothers of the United States and Canada, T. J. Ritter

Constipation in Babies, Olive Oil Treatment for

"Rub the abdomen with a firm yet gentle motion from left to right with pure olive oil. This is what the doctor told me to do for my babe of three years." This treatment will be found very beneficial as the olive oil is very strengthening and the rubbing will always give relief.

Source: Mother's Remedies: Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remidies from Mothers of the United States and Canada, T. J. Ritter

Constipation in Children, Soothing Syrup Made by a Mother in New York for

"One-half ounce spearmint, one-quarter ounce lady's slipper, one-half ounce rhubarb, one-quarter ounce cinnamon powder; pour one-half pint boiling water on the whole, mix and let stand to boil fifteen minutes, strain and sweeten well with syrup or honey. Give a teaspoonful every half hour, diminishing as the pain subsides." This will be found very beneficial in children, and may be used without any fear whatever, as it is perfectly harmless.

Source: Mother's Remedies: Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remidies from Mothers of the United States and Canada, T. J. Ritter

A Preventive Of Constipation

A preventive of constipation in children is to give a drink of warm water the first thing every morning. Especially in summer, when the little ones perspire freely, they should have a drink of water two or three times a day. Half a teaspoonful of almond oil given occasionally is also useful for the same purpose.

Source: Home Notes, January 1895.

Ingredients: Apple

The term "Apple" was applied by the ancients indiscriminately to almost every kind of round fleshy fruit, such as the thornapple, the pineapple, and the loveapple. Paris gave to Venus a golden apple; Atalanta lost her classic race by staying to pick up an apple; the fruit of the Hesperides, guarded by a sleepless dragon, were golden apples; and through the same fruit befell "man's first disobedience," bringing "death into the world and all our woe" (concerning which the old Hebrew myth runs that the apple of Eden, as the first fermentable fruit known to mankind, was the beginner of intoxicating drinks, which led to the knowledge of good and evil).

Nothing need be said here about the Apple as an esculent; we have only to deal with this eminently English, and most serviceable fruit in its curative and remedial aspects. Chemically, the Apple is composed of vegetable fibre, albumen, sugar, gum, chlorophyll, malic acid, gallic acid, lime, and much water. Furthermore, German analysts say that the Apple contains a larger percentage of phosphorus than any other fruit or vegetable. This phosphorus is specially adapted for renewing the essential nervous "lethicin" of the brain and spinal cord. Old Scandinavian traditions represent the Apple as the food of the gods, who, when they felt themselves growing feeble and infirm, resorted to this fruit for renewing their powers of mind and body. Also the acids of the Apple are of signal use for men of sedentary habits, whose livers are sluggish of action; they help to eliminate from the body noxious matters, which, if retained, would make the brain heavy and dull, or produce jaundice, or skin eruptions, or other allied troubles. Some experience of this sort has led to the custom of our taking Apple sauce with roast pork, roast goose, and similar rich dishes. The malic acid of ripe Apples, raw or cooked, will neutralize the chalky matter engendered in gouty subjects, particularly from an excess of meat eating. A good, ripe, raw Apple is one of the easiest of vegetable substances for the stomach to deal with, the whole process of its digestion being completed in eighty-five minutes. Furthermore, a certain aromatic principle is possessed by the Apple, on which its peculiar flavour depends, this being a fragrant essential oil--the valerianate of amyl--in a small but appreciable quantity. It can be made artificially by the chemist, and used for imparting the flavour of apples to sweetmeats and confectionery. Gerard found that "the pulp of roasted Apples, mixed in a wine quart of faire water, and laboured together until it comes to be as Apples and ale--which we call lambswool (Celtic, 'the day of Apple fruit')--never faileth in certain diseases of the raines, which myself hath often proved, and gained thereby both crownes and credit." Also, "The paring of an Apple cut somewhat thick, and the inside whereof is laid to hot, burning or running eyes at night when the party goes to bed, and is tied or bound to the same, doth help the trouble very speedily, and, contrary to expectation, an excellent secret." A poultice made of rotten Apples is commonly used in Lincolnshire for the cure of weak, or rheumatic eyes. Likewise in the Hotel des Invalides, at Paris, an Apple poultice is employed for inflamed eyes, the apple being roasted, and its pulp applied over the eyes without any intervening substance To obviate constipation two or three Apples taken at night, whether baked or raw, are admirably efficient. It was said long ago: "They do easily and speedily pass through the belly, therefore they do mollify the belly," and for this reason a modern maxim teaches that:--

"To eat an Apple going to bed
Will make the doctor beg his bread."

There was concocted in Gerard's day an ointment with the pulpe of Apples, and swine's grease, and rosewater, which was used to beautifie the face, and to take away the roughnesse of the skin, and which was called in the shops "pomatum," from the apples, "poma," whereof it was prepared. As varieties of the Apple, mention is made in documents of the twelfth century, of the pearmain, and the costard, from the latter of which has come the word costardmonger, as at first a dealer in this fruit, and now applied to our costermonger. Caracioli, an Italian writer, declared that the only ripe fruit he met with in Britain was a baked apple. The juices of Apples are matured and lose their rawness by keeping the fruit a certain time. These juices, together with those of the pear, the peach, the plum, and other such fruits, if taken
without adding cane sugar, diminish acidity in the stomach rather than provoke it: they become converted chemically into alkaline carbonates, which correct sour fermentation. It is said in Devonshire that apples shrump up if picked when the moon is on the wane. From the bark of the stem and root of the apple, pear and plum trees, a glucoside is to be obtained in small crystals, which possesses the peculiar property of producing artificial diabetes in animals to whom it is given.

The juice of a sour Apple, if rubbed on warts first pared away to the quick, will serve to cure them. The wild "Scrab," or Crab Apple, armed with thorns, grows in our fields and hedgerows, furnishing verjuice, which is rich in tannin, and a most useful application for old sprains. In the United States of America an infusion of apple tree bark is given with benefit during intermittent, remittent, and bilious fevers. We likewise prescribe Apple water as a grateful cooling drink for feverish patients. Francatelli directs that it should be made thus: "Slice up thinly three or four Apples without peeling them, and boil them in a very clean saucepan, with a quart of water and a little sugar until the slices of apple become soft; the apple water must then be strained through a piece of muslin, or clean rag, into a jug, and drank when cold." If desired, a small piece of the yellow rind of a lemon may be added, just enough to give it a flavour.

About the year 1562 a certain rector of St. Ives, in Cornwall, the Rev. Mr. Attwell, practised physic with milk and Apples so successfully in many diseases, and so spread his reputation, that numerous sufferers came to him from all the neighbouring counties. In Germany ripe Apples are applied to warts for removing them, by reason of the earthy salts, particularly the magnesia, of the fruit. It is a fact, though not generally known, that magnesia, as occurring in ordinary Epsom salts, will cure obstinate warts, and the disposition thereto. Just a few grains, from three to six, not enough to produce any sensible medicinal effect, taken once a day for three or four weeks, will surely dispel a crop of warts. Old cheese ameliorates Apples if eaten when crude, probably by reason of the volatile alkali, or ammonia of the cheese neutralizing the acids of the Apple. Many persons make a practice of eating cheese with Apple pie. The "core" of an Apple is so named from the French word, coeur, "heart."

The juice of the cultivated Apple made by fermentation into cider, which means literally "strong drink," was pronounced by John Evelyn, in his Pomona, 1729, to be "in a word the most wholesome drink in Europe, as specially sovereign against the scorbute, the stone, spleen, and what not." This beverage contains alcohol (on the average a little over five per cent.), gum, sugar, mineral matters, and several acids, among which the malic predominates. As an habitual drink, if sweet, it is apt to provoke acid fermentation with a gouty subject, and to develop rheumatism. Nevertheless, Dr. Nash, of Worcester, attributed to cider great virtues in leading to longevity; and a Herefordshire vicar bears witness to its superlative merits thus:--

"All the Gallic wines are not so boon
As hearty cider;--that strong son of wood
In fullest tides refines and purges blood;
Becomes a known Bethesda, whence arise
Full certain cures for spit tall maladies:
Death slowly can the citadel invade;
A draught of this bedulls his scythe, and spade."

Medical testimony goes to show that in countries where cider--not of the sweet sort--is the common beverage, stone, or calculus, is unknown; and a series of enquiries among the doctors of Normandy, a great Apple country, where cider is the principal, if not the sole drink, brought to light the fact that not a single case had been met with there in forty years. Cider Apples were introduced by the Normans; and the beverage began to be brewed in 1284. The Hereford orchards were first planted "tempore" Charles I.

A chance case of stone in the bladder if admitted into a Devonshire or a Herefordshire Hospital, is regarded by the surgeons there as a sort of professional curiosity, probably imported from a distance. So that it may be fairly surmised that the habitual use of natural unsweetened cider keeps held in solution materials which are otherwise liable to be separated in a solid form by the kidneys.

Pippins are apples which have been raised from pips; a codling is an apple which requires to be "coddled," stewed, or lightly boiled, being yet sour and unfit for eating whilst raw. The John Apple, or Apple John, ripens on St. John's Day, December 27th. It keeps sound for two years, but becomes very shrunken. Sir John Falstaff says (Henry IV., iii. 3) "Withered like an old Apple John." The squab pie, famous in Cornwall, contains apples and onions allied with mutton.

"Of wheaten walls erect your paste:
Let the round mass extend its breast;
Next slice your apples picked so fresh;
Let the fat sheep supply its flesh:
Then add an onion's pungent juice--
A sprinkling--be not too profuse!
Well mixt, these nice ingredients--sure!
May gratify an epicure."

In America, "Apple Slump" is a pie consisting of apples, molasses, and bread crumbs baked in a tin pan. This is known to New Englanders as "Pan Dowdy." An agreeable bread was at one time made by an ingenious Frenchman which consisted of one third of apples boiled, and two-thirds of wheaten flour.

It was through the falling of an apple in the garden of Mrs. Conduitt at Woolthorpe, near Grantham, Sir Isaac Newton was led to discover the great law of gravitation which regulates the whole universe. Again, it was an apple the patriot William Tell shot from the head of his own bright boy with one arrow, whilst reserving a second for the heart of a tyrant. Dr. Prior says the word Apple took its origin from the Sanskrit, Ap,--"water," and Phal,--"fruit," meaning "water fruit," or "juice fruit"; and with this the Latin name Pomum--from Poto, "to drink"--precisely agrees; if which be so, our apple must have come originally from the East long ages back.

The term "Apple-pie order" is derived from the French phrase, à plis, "in plaits," folded in regular plaits; or, perhaps, from cap à pied, "armed from head to foot," in perfect order. Likewise the "Apple-pie bed" is so called from the French à plis, or it may be from the Apple turnover of Devon and Cornwall, as made with the paste turned over on itself.

The botanical name of an apple tree is Pyrus Malus, of which schoolboys are wont to make ingenious uses by playing on the latter word. Malo, I had rather be; Malo, in an Apple tree; Malo, than a wicked man; Malo, in adversity. Or, again, Mea mater mala est sus, which bears the easy translation, "My mother is a wicked old sow"; but the intentional reading of which signifies "Run, mother! the sow is eating the apples." The term "Adam's Apple," which is applied to the most prominent part of a person's throat in front is based on the superstition that a piece of the forbidden fruit stuck in Adam's throat, and caused this lump to remain.


Source: Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure, William Thomas Fernie