The black cohosh is a plentiful and conspicous plant, growing in fence corners, on side hills and in rich woods. It blooms from the latter part of June until August. It grows from the Indian Territory to the Atlantic coast, extending as far north as the great lakes, and nearly as far south as Florida. The center of distribution is in the Ohio Valley. The part used in medicine is the rhizome, gathered in the autumn and carefully dried in the shade. It has an unpleasant, faint, earthy odor. Boiling water takes up its properties only partially; alcohol or ether wholly. The seeds probably possess active properties. The resin is but little used at the present time except in pill form, in combination with other agents.
Cimicifuga has several common names, as snakeroot and rattleroot, having been used to cure rattlesnake bites; rattleweed, from the fact that the seeds remaining in the pods through a part of the winter, rattle when blown by the winds; squawroot, a name more properly belonging to blue cohosh; and its pharmacopœial name, black snakeroot. The name macrotys, adopted by some Eclectics, is an erroneous one, given by De Candolle, the celebrated French botanist. The proper word is macrotrys, from two Greek words meaning a large bunch, referring to its large raceme of fruit. Cimicifuga, its present botanical name, is derived from cimex (bedbug), and fugare (to drive away), the European species having been used as a bug exterminator. The drug is best known to the members of our school as Macrotys.
This interesting remedy was a decided favorite with the early Eclectic practitioners, and to this day holds a very prominent place among the remedies originally placed before the medical profession by our school. As early as 1785, Schoepf merely mentioned the plant, but its medical uses were first recorded by Barton, in 1801, who called it squawroot, and writes: “Our Indians set a high value on it.” He describes its use in putrid sore throat, itch, and in diseases of women, and further adds that it was used in the treatment of murrain in cattle. Other investigators wrote concerning it from time to time, but to Prof. John King belongs the credit of placing it before the medical profession, and it was through his valuable writings that it became an established and valued remedy. Prof. King began the use of macrotys in 1832, when but few physicians knew anything concerning it as a medicine. In 1835 he prepared the first resin of cimicifuga, often sold under the improper names of cimicifugin, macrotyn, or macrotin. In 1844 he called the attention of physicians to it, and again, in 1846, wrote of it in the Western Medical Reformer; though the remedy did not come into general use until about 1850. Finally, when the Eclectic Dispensatory appeared in 1852, Dr. King gave the remedy great prominence, and from that time on it has been used very extensively by the Eclectic physicians.