Botanical Source.—Feverfew is a perennial, herbaceous plant, with a tapering root, and an erect, branched, leafy, round, furrowed stem, about 2 feet high. The leaves are alternate, petiolate, flat, bipinnate, or tripinnate, hoary green, the segments or leaflets inclining to ovate, decurrent, gashed, and dentate. The flowers are white and compound. The panicle is corymbose, sometimes compound; peduncles long-naked, single-flowered, and swelling upward. Flower-heads erect, about ½ inch broad, with a convex, yellow disk, and numerous short, broad, abrupt, 2-ribbed, white rays; often wanting; sometimes multiplied, and the disk being obliterated, constitutes a double flower. The involucre is hemispherical, imbricate, pubescent, with the scales scarious at the edge; the receptacle flat or convex, and naked; the achenia wingless, angular, uniform, crowned by a coronetted pappus, which is usually toothed, and occasionally auriculate (L.—W.).
History.—This is a European plant, and is common to the United States; found occasionally in a wild state, but is generally cultivated in gardens, and flowers in June and July. It imparts its virtues to water, but much better to alcohol. Bees are said to dislike this plant very much, and a handful of the flower-heads will cause them to keep at a distance.
Chemical Composition.—J. Chautard, in 1863, obtained from this plant, by distillation with water, an oil which deposits upon standing in the cold, a lævo-rotatory camphor, pyrethrum-camphor (C₁₀H₁₆O), distinguished from ordinary camphor by its opposite optical rotation. Besides, the volatile oil contains an oxygenated liquid, and possibly a terpene hydrocarbon.
Action, Medical Uses, and Dosage.—Tonic, carminative, emmenagogue, vermifuge, and stimulant. This agent is one of the pleasantest of the tonics, influencing the whole intestinal tract, increasing the appetite, improving digestion, and promoting secretion, besides having a decided action upon the renal and cutaneous functions. The warm infusion is an excellent remedy in recent colds, flatulency, worms, atonic dyspepsia, irregular menstruation, nervous debility, hysteria, suppression of the urine, and in some febrile diseases. In hysteria or flatulency, 1 teaspoonful of the compound spirits of lavender forms a valuable addition to the dose of the infusion, which is from 2 to 4 fluid ounces. The cold infusion or extract makes a valuable tonic. The leaves in poultice are an excellent local application in severe pain or swelling of the bowels, etc.