Britain's Wartime Herbal Healers

We recall how the UK’s countryside came to our rescue in our hour of need

- Chris Morley

Britain’s countryside is like a natural medicine cabinet, abundant with plants that can help treat disease and even save lives. During World Wars One and Two, when medical supplies ran frighteningly low, the nation turned to foraging for wild herbs and plants to make vital medicines.

Plants to the rescue

In peacetime, Britain imported most of its medicines from Europe. But World War One disrupted supply chains, holding up drug shipments. The Government looked to medicinal herbs to fill the gap, and for the public to collect them for use by pharmaceutical companies. It made a list of ‘most wanted’ plants, including sphagnum moss, which made sterile, antibacterial and absorbent wound dressings for injured soldiers. Women, children and the elderly rallied to the cause – one person alone filled 5,000 sacks from Dartmoor in just five months! By the end of the war, military hospitals were receiving around one million of these life-saving dressings a month.

Green allies

Other valuable herbs included meadow saffron, to reduce inflammation and treat gout, and stinging nettles, used in asthma drugs and to dye camouflage. Deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna) was also sought after, but only adults were allowed to collect this highly toxic plant. Once processed, it was used in eye operations and as an antidote for gas poisoning. A known sedative, valerian helped reduce anxiety and insomnia in civilians (it was an ingredient in ‘nerve pills’), and was also prescribed to shell-shocked infantrymen.

County Herb Committees