Herbs in History: Borage

Borage Borago officinalis L. CONTENTS Cheerfulness? Multiple Modern Uses Invisibility Going West Medieval Efflorescence Merging Traditions References

By Alain Touwaide & Emanuela Appetiti | September 2024

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Cheerfulness?

If we have to believe literature, borage (Borago officinalis L.) (Boraginaceae) was considered as a euphoric agent in the early centuries of the Greek World. Homer, the blind itinerant poet and the author of the Iliad and possibly also of the Odyssey, allegedly mentioned its property to provoke forgetfulness when taken with wine. Thanks to this property, it has been thought to be the famous nepenthes that the Queen of Egypt offered to poor Greek Helen on her sailing back from Troy to Greece after the long and painful war that opposed the Greeks and the Trojans, to relief her mourning and sufferance. Looking closer to the sources, however, we discover quite a different history.

 

Multiple Modern Uses

Illustration 1: Borago officinalis L.

Borago is an annual plant that propagates from seed in situ in a prolifical self-sowing way. It can also be sown in situ, in fall or early spring. It grows easily up to 2 ft, in dry and possibly also poor soils, exposed to the sun. Quite common in herb gardens, it stands out with its alluring blue flowers producing a nice dye that might sometimes turn pink, and its hairy leaves (Illustration 1). It is insect repellent.
 
Borage leaves have been traditionally consumed fresh either as a potherb or as a salad with other leafy greens. In Italy, they are used cooked as spinach in soups, or as a filling for fresh homemade pasta like ravioli. They must be harvested before flowering, in the morning, after the sun has dried the night dew. Rich in potassium and calcium, they have a cucumber-like taste and are better chopped. Flowers can also be added to salads and other dishes, providing a stroke of colour and a delicate taste, when they are not used to give vinegar an unusual, magical, blue colour.
 
Literature credits its leaves (preferably fresh), stems, flowers and seeds with a great many medicinal uses, traditional or more recent. In addition to having been recently shown to be active against various cancers, borage is credited with a sedative action on the nervous system, insomnia, and dizziness, melancholy, and low courage. On the respiratory system it acts on fever, asthma, bronchitis, pleurisy and common colds and flu. On the digestive system, it relieves gastritis and irritated bowel. On the cardio-vascular system, it acts on palpitation due to hyperthyroidism. In gynecology, it softens the cervix, increases milk production, is effective on postpartum exhaustion, and helps in menopause. And, in external use, it relieves insect bites and stings, reduces swelling and bruising, and clears boils and rashes.
 
With so many and so critical uses, it is no surprise that borage has been supposedly used as a common domestic medicine, with a particular reputation on the mind, to dispel melancholy and provoking euphoria as Helen’s story best exemplifies.
 

Invisibility

Strangely, however, borage does not appear in most classics of pharmacognosy of the 19^th or early 20^th century. It is remarkably absent, for example, from the all-inclusive classical Pharmacographia by German pharmaco-chemist Friedrich Flückiger (1828-1894) and his British colleague Daniel Hanbury (1825-1875) (first published in 1874). It does not appear either in the no-less influential and epoch-making Therapie through Plants. An Introduction to Formulae for Plant Therapy with Examples (Pflanzliche Therapie Eine Anleitung mit Beispielen zur Rezeptur Pflanzliche Therapie) first published in Leipzig in 1935 by German physician Ernst Meyer, which announced the 20^th-century revival of plant medicine. Similarly, it cannot be found in the massive three-volumes, all-embracing encyclopedia of traditional therapeutic applications of natural substances collected by German physician Gerhard Madaus (1890-1942, Textbook of the Biological Healing Methods (Lehrbuch der biologischen Heilmittel) published in 1938.
 
Borage’s invisibility is not new. Already in Antiquity, borage did not appear in the most ancient writings of the Greek scientific and medical corpus. It can not be traced in the collection of writings transmitted under the name of Hippocrates (460-between 375 and 350 BCE), the Father of Medicine, and neither in the founding treatises of botany by Theophrastus (ca. 370-ca. 287 BCE), a disciple of Aristotle (384-322 BCE) and his successor at the helm of the Athenian Lycaeum.
 
It is only with the Greek Dioscorides (1^st cent. CE) and the Latin Pliny (23/24-79 CE) that we find it, respectively in De materia medica and Naturalis Historia. Nevertheless, its identification is difficult: Dioscorides’ description is generic, indeed, and is limited to a vague profile of the plant that does not allow for unmistakenly identifying the plant, whereas Pliny does not provide any element  of description or, in the lack of it, one or more specific characteristics. We have to wait until the Renaissance Latin translations of, and commentaries on, Dioscorides, De materia medica to identify the Greek phytonym referred to borage: bouglōsson, which literally means ox tongue in an etymology that will have a long history as we shall see.
 
Under the name bouglōsson we read the following in Dioscorides (De materia medica 4.127):
 

IV, 127 βούγλωσσον (bouglōsson). It resembles mullein. Its foliage lies on the ground, and it is jagged, darker, and smaller, resembling a cow's tongue. Mixed into their wine, it is thought to make people cheerful.

 
In Pliny, we read a similar information, hinting at the same source, with some transformation, however (Naturalis Historia 25.81):
 

... buglossos, which is like the tongue of an ox. The most conspicuous quality of this is that, thrown into wine, it increases the exhilarating effect, and so it is also called euphrosynum, the plant that cheers.

           
Pliny clearly drew his information from a Greek source—and most probably the same as the one used by Dioscorides: the name euphrosynum that he attributes to bouglōsson is not only Greek but is also the term used by Dioscorides to identify the state of consciousness (cheerfulness) supposedly provoked by bouglōsson.
 
The term euphrosynum reappears about bouglōsson in the vast encyclopedia on materia medica compiled a century later by the omniscient Galen (129-after [?] 216 CE).
 
This term repeatedly present from Dioscorides to Galen, including Pliny, is most probably the source of the affirmation in contemporary literature about the use of borage in neurology and its euphoric effect. And also of the attribution of this first affirmation to Homer, the author of the founding text of Greek classical culture.
 
Going beyond this supposed property and its developments in modern texts, in another passage, Pliny returns to bouglōsson with its use in cases of fever (Naturalis Historia 26.116):
 

If one takes, when bugloss is withering, the pith out of a stem and says that he does it to free so and so from fever, attaching to the patient seven leaves before a paroxysm begins, he is freed, it is said, from the fever.

 
Similarly, in Galen we find a new therapeutic indication: bouglōsson boiled with honey is efficacious in cases of dry throat.
 
The representation of bouglōsson in the ancient manuscripts of Dioscorides’ Greek text does not help as it seems to be related to other plants (Illustrations 2 and 3).
 

Illustration 2: Bouglosson in manuscript New York, Morgan Library, M652, f. 20 verso (Constantinople, 10th cent.)		Illustration 3: Bouglosson in manuscript Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Chisianus F VII 158, f. 43 verso (Constantinople, 14th cent.)

 

Going West

Judging from these illustrations and the paucity of information, it seems that borage was not well known in the Eastern Mediterranean World, where both Dioscorides and Galen lived and probably also the author of Pliny’s source.
 

Moving westwards and a couple of centuries later, we encounter bovis lingua (literally ox tongue, that is, the exact translation of the Greek term bouglōsson) in the so-called Herbarium Apulei, a small collection of information on medicinal plants possibly dating back to the 4^th century CE.

The text is unambiguous about the identity of bovis lingua and bouglōsson:
 
Herba bovis lingua (ox tongue) ... it is called buglossa by the Greeks ...

 
It provides some botanical, environmental and harvesting data:
 

There is another herb similar to this, with small leaves as those of lapatium ... It grows in cultivated environment, sandy. Harvest it in July.

 

To that it adds some therapeutic indications:
 

Against tertian and quartan fever
 
Of the herba bovis (ox tongue), the [individuals] with three stems and pods with seeds, will treat fever if you give a potion of the whole root boiled with water. The individuals with four stems and pods will act against quartan fever, administered as above.
 
Against suppuration
 
The herba bovis (ox tongue) pestled with honey and bread, applied as a emplaster marvelously opens suppurations.

 
The representation of the herba bovis/buglosa in a later Western manuscript (Illustation 4) allows for a better identification of the plant as Borago, possibly B. officinalis L.
 

Illustration 4: Bouglosson in manuscript Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, latin 6823, f. 26 recto (Southern Italy [?], 14th cent.)

Better knowledge of borage in the West would not be surprising as its native distribution is more Western than Eastern Mediterranean (Illustration 5). Interestingly, the information about the treatment of fever in the Herbarium Apulei was already present in Pliny, Naturalis Historia, hinting at a Western therapeutic tradition anterior to the Herbarium Apulei.
 

Illustration 5: Native distribution of Borago officinalis L., from Plants of the World Online

Medieval Efflorescence

Bearing in mind this westerness of borage, we discover it in several medieval treatises, with new therapeutic indications.
 
The 10^th-century Old English Herbal is mostly a translation of the Latin Herbarium Apulei, which the translator might not have exactly understood. Nevertheless, there are some new indications (chapter 42):
 

This plant, which the Greeks call buglossa and the Romans lingua bubula ... grows in cultivated places and in sandy soils.
 
If a person has a fever that returns every third or every fourth day: take the root of this plant when it has three pods of seeds; then simmer the root in water, give to drink; you will cure him. Also, the plant that has four pods will be of benefit ...
 
For shortness of breath: take this same plant, along with honey and bread that has been baked with grease, in the same way as if you were making a poultice. It will eliminate the pain wonderfully.

 
Slightly later (12^th cent.), the English translation of Floridus Macer devotes a longer chapter to borage under the title Langedeboef, which is again the exact translation into French of the Greek term bouglōsson (chapter 28b. 16-30). Indications are more numerous: against choleric conditions (bilious conditions), humours (secretions) in the lungs (that is, expectorant), sciatica, hangover, and quartan fever, in addition to inducing joyfulness according to the ancient tradition that goes as far back as Antiquity.
 

The so-called English Agnus castus of the 12^th-15^th century is shorter (171.10-16):

This herb grows in gardens, it has a sharp leaf and a blue flower. The property of this plant is that it cleans the red spot in the face. Also, this herb mixed in wine will make men happy and cheerful. It is also good in potage as it is wholesome for the body. This plant is warm and humid.

 
In Southern Italy (Salerno), Matthaeus Platearius in the 12^th century, treated borage in a more classical chapter in which he integrated the ancient theory of qualities and degrees of medicinal plants (chapter B 4):
 

Borago is warm and humid in the 1^st degree. It is a rather common herb, with hairy leaves, which are appropriate for medicinal uses when they are fresh, less when they are dry. They have the property to generate good blood. Henceforth, they are good for patients recovering from a disease, fainting patients, cardiac patients, melancholics, taken with meat or tossed with blood ... It should be absorbed regularly with meat against icter, together with its sap and that of lettuce.

 
Later, the so-called Tractatus de herbis (14^th cent. [?]) devotes a whole, long chapter to it. Strangely, it closes it with the enumeration of the species of the plant instead of starting with this botanical note. It distinguishes three species by the colour of their flower: blue, white and yellow, with blue being the best for medicine.
 
After the list of the names of borage from Greek to Libyan, the Tractatus repeats the information of the Herbarium Apulei and treatises as those above, to which it adds some new properties: enhancing memory “according to numerous wise men”, increasing libido, and making guests of a dinner joyful by spreading decoction of borage onto them.
 

Merging Traditions

Walking in the footsteps of their Byzantine predecessors, Renaissance scholars collected manuscripts of the classical Greek texts—be they of literature, science or medicine. They worked assiduously to transform these texts from handwritten to printed form. As early as 1499, the editorial and printing officine of Aldo Manuzio (1449-1515) in Venice produced the first printed version of the Greek text of Dioscorides, De materia medica. In this edition, the text on bouglōsson, which was originally pretty brief and deprived of information as we have seen, is very different from this ancient, reduced form. A close reading reveals that this text of the Aldina edition merged the original Greek text of Dioscorides with a Greek version of the Herbarium Apulei, resulting in a hybrid chapter that generated confusion more than it helped know borage and its therapeutic applications.
 
From German medico-botanist Otto Brunfels (1488-1534) to English herbalist John Gerard (1545-1612), Renaissance botanists, physicians and herbalists made great efforts to try and disentangle the mix of information and, hence, the species of borage and even confused genera. This is particularly clear from the many illustrations Renaissance scholars and scientists provided in their chapter related to bouglōsson, with three of them in the earliest illustrated Renaissance herbal, that by Brunfels, Herbarum vivae eicones ad naturae imitationem (Images of living plants imitating nature) (1530) (Illustrations 6-8).
 

Illustrations 6-8: Species of Buglossa in Otto Brunfels, Herbarum vivae eicones, Strasbourg, 1530, pp. 111 (illu. 6), 112 (illu. 7) and 113 (illu. 8)

It was the merit of the French Jean Ruel (1474-1537) to definitely establish the identity of bouglōsson. After he translated Dioscorides, De materia medica into Latin (first published in 1516), he compiled a synthesis on medicinal plants mostly on the basis of classical ancient texts: De natura stirpium libri tres (Three books on the nature of [medicinal] plants) first published in 1536. There he treated borage as follows (p. 843):
 

Buglosson. The Romans call it linguam bovis (ox tongue) ... This is the plant that is now called borage by the pharmacists, borache by the French, porrago by some ... This plant, well known to the vegetable growers, is cultivated in orchards; it is extremely common, and particularly pleasant as a foodstuff.

 
Slightly later, German medico-botanist Leonhart Fuchs (1501-1566) produced a naturalistic representation of a species of Borago in Historia Stirpium (1542) (Illustration 9). He was followed by the Italian Pietro Andrea Mattioli (1501-1578), who started translating and commenting on Dioscorides, De materia medica as early as 1544, with numerous subsequent editions, which were illustrated from 1554 onwards. He confirmed the identify bouglōsson/borago (Illustration 10).
 

Illustration 9: Buglossum in Leonhart Fuchs, Stirpium Historia, Basel, 1542, p. 142		Illustration 10: Two species of Buglossa in Pietro Andrea Mattioli, Discorsi ... Dioscoride ..., Venezia, 1555, p. 539

 
At almost the same time, Englishman William Turner (ca. 1510-1568) devoted an entry to Buglossum in his 1548 Names of herbes, with the following:
 

Buglossum. Buglossum called of the Poticaries borago, is called in englishe borage, in duche borretsch, in french borache, borage is moyst and warme. I heare saye that there is a better kynde of Buglosse founde of late in Spayne, but I haue not seene that kynde as yet. The commune buglosse that we vse, is not cirsion, as afterwardes I shal declare but a certeyne kynde of ryght buglosse.

 
Three years later, he studied borage in his New herball (London, 1551) under the title Of lang debefe (On ox tongue) (Illustration 11) as per the French adaptation and transformation of the literal French translation of bouglōsson: langue de boeuf.
 

Illustration 11: Of Lang Debefe in William Turner, A New Herball, London, 1551, p. [116]

In the numerous re-editions of his work on Dioscorides, Mattioli produced large, full-page illustrations as early as 1565 with three about Buglossum (Illustrations 12-14). Slightly later, the Belgian Rembert Dodoens (1516/7-1585) followed with his 1583 Stirpium Historiae Pemptades sex. sive Libri XXX. (Six Pemptades of the Research on Plants, wich is 30 Books), which was the Latin translation of his original Cruijdeboeck (1554) (Illustrations 15-16). His work provided the basis for the Herball or Generall Historie of plants by Englishman John Gerard (1545-1612) first published in 1597 (London) (Illustration 17). After a new edition of Dodoens’ was published in 1616 (Illustration 18-19), a revised version of Gerard’s Herbal was compiled and published under the same title in 1633 (Illustrations 20-21).
 

Illustrations 12-14: Buglossum sive Borago and species of Buglossum in Pietro Andrea Mattioli, Commentarii ... Dioscoridies ..., Venezia, 1565, pp. 1186 (illu. 12), 1187 (illu. 13) and 1188 (illu. 14)

 

Illustration 15-16: Species of Borago and Buglossa in Rembert Dodoens, Stripium Historiae Pemptades sex ..., Antverpiae, 1583, pp. 616 (illu. 15) and 617 (illu. 16)

 

Illustration 17: Borago (borage) in John Gerard, Herball, London, 1597, p. 655

 

Illustration 18-19: Species of Borago and Buglossa in Rembert Dodoens, Stirpium Historiae Pemptades sex ..., Antverpiae 1616, pp. 627 (illu. 18) and 628 (illu. 19)

 

Illustration 20-21: Species of Buglosa/Buglossum (Lang de beefe [sic]) in John Gerard, Herball, London, 1616, pp. 798 (ilu. 20) and 799 (illu. 21)

However abundant it was, this publishing activity did not substantially increase knowledge of borage as it was mostly focused on establishing the identity with ancient knowledge. If it succeeded in doing so, at the same time it also contributed to the loss of information on borage and relegated it to its invisibility, just as in Antiquity, in addition to opening the way to incorrect interpretations and transformations in historiography.

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