Squirting cucumber has been used as a medicinal plant for 2000 years. Hippocrates in Diseases of Women says that the preferred drug for abortion is Ecballium elaterium. Squirting cucumber is a very powerful purgative that produces watery stools, griping, and sometimes vomiting. Squirting cucumber is one of the strongest herbal purgatives known, and for this reason is rarely used Squirting cucumber has no specific action on the uterus. Squirting cucumber has caused deaths in women who have taken it.[452]
Gathering: The fruit is collected just before it ripens and is left until it matures and ejects the seeds and juice. This must not be artificially hastened or the medicinal product will be affected. The juice is dried in flakes.
Preparation: Elaterium is usually made into pills or sometimes into tinctures. Elaterium is not widely available, as it has fallen out of use.
Words to the Wise: Elaterium can vary greatly in strength, use extreme caution. Juice can cause dermatitis. Exposure to the juice if inhaled can cause irritation or obstruction of the mucous membranes. Eyes should be promptly irrigated if exposed to prevent injury. Elaterium has caused the death of some women who have used it in an attempt to cause abortion.
Watch for signs of Toxicity Specific to Squirting Cucumber: Violent gastroenteritis, circulation system and nervous system depression, cardiac failure, and renal failure.[453]
Elaterin: 1/40 - 1/10 grain, taken every three to four hours until abortion commences.
* Extreme caution. Elaterin (the concentrated juice of squirting cucumber) is not used in modern medicine because it is so dangerous!
Stoneseed
I know of a woman who used it, but it worked too well. She could never have children after using it. The Crow word for stone seed, eldocxabio, means ‘miscarriage plant’…The wrong dose can leave a woman sterile.
-Alma Hogan Snell in A Taste of Heritage, 2006
AKA: Woolly gromwell and western puccoon.
Medicinal Properties: Antigonadotropic, antithyroidal, contraceptive, and diuretic.
Effects on the Body: Reduces gonadotropic hormone, reduces estrogen, mimics progesterone, and inhibits thyroid stimulating hormone.
Abortifacient Action: Inhibits progesterone.
Contains: Lithospermic acid. Seems to suppress lactate dehydrogenase leakage particularly in renal cells.
Description: Stoneseed grows in open dry places from the valleys up to the lower sub alpine forests in western North America, from Colorado to California and north to British Columbia. Stoneseed’s narrow lance-shaped leaves, with small pale yellow to orange tubular flowers (March – July), spiral around the upper stems. It can reach 2 ft. (0.6 m) in height. In late summer, the seeds (like little stones) are seen, four seeds inside each calyx.
Native Americans from the Shoshoni and Navajo also are documented as utilizing the stoneseed plant as an oral contraceptive.[454] Decoctions of stoneseed are known for their pronounced contraceptive action, and its use by the Native Americans provided inspiration for the development of oral contraceptives.[455] Six months of continued use was believed to cause sterility.[456]
Like many abortifacient herbs, stoneseed was associated with the goddess, and in stoneseed’s case, the herb was associated with a living goddess in the Native American Blackfoot tribe. Stems of stoneseed were used by children of the Native American Blackfoot tribe to make headdresses for acting and playing out the affairs of the Holy Woman.[457] Blackfoot women were known among Native American tribes for their fierce independence and for the respect they were given within their tribe. The Holy Woman of the Blackfoot tribe presided over the Sun Dance, which could not be held if the Holy Woman was not there praying for the tribe and its continued connection to the Sun Deity.[458] The Sun Dance, held on or near the summer solstice, was the coming of age ceremony which allowed a young man the unquestioned right to the title of warrior. In other Native American tribes, stoneseed was believed to have magical powers to make it rain or to stop a thunderstorm.[459]
Scientific testing of stoneseed has confirmed the antifertility effects of stoneseed. Stoneseed has been found to inhibit progesterone hormone due to a direct effect on the hypothalamus. Extract of stoneseed was found to decrease the gonadotropic activity in the pituitary glands of female mice.[460] Extract of stoneseed root impaired the development of the gonads and accessory sex organs in female rats.[461]
Gathering: For the best medicinal qualities, the root of stoneseed should be gathered after sunset. The seeds of stoneseed are gathered in the late summer.
Preparation: Stoneseed is used in the week preceding a woman’s period to inhibit implantation. If used every day of the menstrual cycle, stoneseed acts to permanently reduce estrogen levels. Stoneseed used daily for over six months is reported to induce permanent sterility. Stoneseed is not documented as being combined with any other herbs.
Words to the Wise: Some plants in the Lithospermum genus contain pyrrolizidine alkaloids. Pyrrolizidine alkaloids are known to be toxic to the liver.
Contraceptive/ Implantation Inhibiting Stoneseed Decoction: 1oz. (28 g) dry root to two cups (500 ml) of water, infused cold overnight, 1 tsp. (5 ml) every three hours, for up to five days.
Contraceptive/ Implantation Inhibiting Powdered Seed: ½ tsp. (1 g) every four - five hours, for up to five days.
*Extreme caution! Stoneseed is known to cause sterility.
Tansy
Dr. Caton's Tansy Pills!
The most reliable remedy for ladies. Always safe, effectual, and the only guaranteed women's salvation.
Price $1.
Second advice free.
R. F. Caton, Boston, Mass.
-Turn of the 20th century newspaper classified
AKA: Tansy, bitter-buttons, hindheal, ginger plant, and parsley fern.
Parts Used: Flowers, leaves, seeds, and root.
Medicinal Properties: Abortifacient, anthelmintic, emmenagogue, stimulant, and tonic.
Effects on the Body: Uterine stimulant, menstrual regulator, and expels worms.
Abortifacient Action: Contracts uterus.
Contains: Beta-thujone.
Description: Tansy is an aromatic perennial with strong erect stems reaching 2 - 3 ft. (0.6 - 1 m) in height. Alternate 3 - 4 in. (7.5 – 10 cm) long leaves, deep-green, lance-shaped, with alternate deeply toothed leaflets, give tansy a feathery appearance. Golden-yellow flower ‘buttons’, late summer to mid-autumn, appear tightly grouped together in flat-topped flower-clusters. Found on wastelands, wood clearings, and undisturbed nitrogen-rich soils in North America from Nova Scotia to British Columbia, from Nevada to North Carolina.
452
Alfred Swaine Taylor and Robert Eglesfeld Griffith,
453
P. Vlachos, N.N. Kanitsakis, and N.N. Kokonas, “Fatal Cardiac and Renal Failure due to
454
Alex Johnston,
455
Arthur Cronquist,
456
J.J. Craighead, F.C. Craighead and R.J. Davis,
457
John C. Hellson,
458
Alice B. Kehoe, “Women’s Life Course in Northern Plains Indian Societies: Achieving the Honored Rank of Old Lady,” Opinion Papers; Speeches/Meeting Papers 1982-12-05 as cited online: http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/d etailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED23 2794&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED232794 (accessed April 23, 2008).
459
Nancy J. Turner, Laurence C. Thompson, and M. Terry Thompson et al.,
460
M. L. Drasher and P.A. Zahl, “The Effect of Lithospermum on the mouse estrous cycle,”
461
E.R. Plunkett and R.I. Noble, “Éffect of the Injection of