If echinacea and ginseng are the Jacob's Creek and Garnet Point of the herb world - overseas exotics rendered mundane and slightly embarrassing by their conspicuous presence on the high street - figwort is the scrumpy cider. It is as English as herbs come, a purple-flowered inhabitant of dank woods and damp meadows which is the opposite of glamorous. In his 17th-century book The Complete Herbal, Nicholas Culpeper describes the use of figwort for cleansing the system and treating "the king's evil [tuberculosis of the lymph gland], or any other knobs, kernels, bunches or wens growing in the flesh wheresoever; and for the haemorrhoids". The "king's evil" was also known as scrofula - and figwort's Latin name, Scrophularia nodosa, reflects this.
In rural Norfolk, figwort was used as recently as the 1930s as a treatment for wounds and sores - a point noted by Professor Monique Simmonds of the Jodrell laboratory at Kew gardens. A year ago, she and fellow researchers set out to find a herbal treatment for leg ulcers of the type associated with diabetes - particularly in the tropics, where humidity turns wounds septic and stops them healing. "In the Vietnam war," she says, "plants were used extensively by the Vietnamese military. Our aim was to identify the types of compound active in wound healing - first tropical plants, then our own native flora, which have been overlooked in the rush to plunder the rainforest."
Aware of figwort's use as a folk remedy in Norfolk, Simmonds and her team made a crude extract of the plant, prepared exactly as it would have been hundreds of years ago. "One way was to boil the seeds in water and apply that to the wound," she says. "The other was to make a poultice from the seeds, wrap it up in a bandage and apply that. They would make a new poultice every day, because it tended to dry out - and water was necessary to release the extract."
Rather than test the plant on animals (which was controversial) or humans (unethical), the Kew scientists studied its biochemical activity in the laboratory. Tests showed that figwort stimulated production of fibroblasts, the cells in connective tissue that synthesise collagen - essential for wound healing. "We then fractionalised the extract," Simmonds says, "to separate the compounds according to their solubility in water. When we retested the fractions, we found that one or two could explain the fibroblast activity."
The compounds responsible were iridoids - normally part of a plant's defence against infection or insects. "We studied a range of these compounds to find out exactly how they worked," says Simmonds, "and whether they needed things like oxygen or nitrogen to be effective. The next stage is to ask whether they have any adverse effects." If they don't, the commercial potential of the Kew researchers' discovery could be enormous. "There are another 60 or 70 native plants that we could test for iridoid activity," says Simmonds, "and of those, I would estimate that 20 will fall into this category." After that, she and her team hope to explore the healing properties of all British plants.
In Culpeper's day, figwort was often taken internally. Drunk as an infusion, it was believed to detoxify the system and treat conditions ranging from eczema to rheumatism. As a tincture, it was mixed with other digestive herbs (such as dandelion, burberry and rhubarb) to alleviate constipation, gout and sluggishness, and with bittersweet or burdock to treat skin problems. Modern chemical analysis suggests that there may be some truth in this ancient wisdom. In addition to iridoids, figwort contains flavonoids - known for their anti-inflammatory and antiviral qualities. It is also a source of saponins, natural chemicals that may play a part in boosting the immune system, fighting bacterial infection, lowering cholesterol levels and even killing cancer cells.
Though you won't find figwort snuggling up with the kava kava and St John's wort in branches of Holland & Barrett, it is plentiful throughout the British Isles and available from herbalists. Also known as rosenoble, throatwort, carpenter's square, scrofula plant, kernelwort and heal-all, it should not be taken by anyone with an abnormally rapid heartbeat (tachycardia), since it contains cardioactive glycosides - a group of naturally occurring substances that stimulate the heart muscle. Though no serious side effects have been reported to date, figwort - like all herbal remedies - may react badly with some conventional medicines. It is essential to consult your GP before using it.
• Next week: garlic.
