What is a Herbal Simple? The English word “Simple,” composed of two Latin words, Singula plica (a single fold), means “Singleness,” whether of material or purpose. The term “Herbal Simple” has been applied to any homely curative remedy consisting of one 
ingredient only, and that of a vegetable nature.
Simplers were guided in their choice of herbs partly by watching animals who sought them out for self-cure, and partly by discovering for themselves the sensible properties of the plants as revealed by their odour and taste; also by their supposed resemblance to those diseases which nature meant them to heal.
Herbal Simples seeks rather to justify their uses on the sound basis of accurate chemical analysis,and precise elementary research. Medicinal herbs have come down to us from early times as possessing only a traditional value, and as exercising merely depending upon experience or observation alone, without using scientific method or theory, esp. as in medicine.
Their selection has been commended solely by a shrewd insight and judgment, and by the practice of successive centuries. But today a closer analysis in the laboratory, and skilled provings by experts have resolved the several plants into their component parts, and have chemically determined the medicinal nature of these parts, both singly and collectively. So that the study and practice of curative herbs may now fairly take rank as an exact science, and may command the full confidence of the sick for supplying trustworthy aid and succour in their times of bodily need.
Scientific reasons which are self-convincing may be readily conclusive for prescribing all our best known native herbal medicines. Among them the Elder, Parsley, Peppermint, and Watercress may be taken as familiar examples of this leading fact.
Juice of Elderberries simmered and thickened with sugar, or mulled Elder wine concocted from the fruit, with raisins, sugar, and spices, has been a popular remedy, this simple herbal if taken hot at bedtime, for a recent cold, or for a sore throat. But only of late has chemistry explained that Elderberries furnish “viburnic acid,”which induces sweating, and is specially curative of inflammatory bronchial soreness.
Likewise Parsley, besides being a favourite pot herb, and a garnish for cold meats, has been long popular as a tea for inflammation of mucous membranes, especially of the nose and throat, of the bladder or kidneys; while the bruised leaves have been praise highly as a poultice for swellings and open sores. At the same time, a saying about the herb has commonly prevailed that it “brings death to men, and salvation to women.” Not, however, until recently has it been learned that the sweet-smelling plant yields what chemists call “apiol,” or Parsley-Camphor, which, when given in moderation, exercises a quieting influence on the main sensific centres of life–the head and the spine.
Thereby any feverish irritability of the urinary organs inflicted by cold, or other nervous shock, would be subordinately allayed. Thus likewise the Parsley-Camphor (while serving, when applied externally, to usefully stimulate slow to heal wounds)proves especially beneficial for female irregularities.
Peppermint, its strong highly flavored sweet liquor, or its lozenges taken as a confection, have been popular from the days of our grandmothers for the relief of colic in the bowels, or for the stomach-ache of flatulent indigestion. But this practice has obtained simply because the pungent herb was found to diffuse grateful aromatic warmth within the stomach and bowels, while promoting the expulsion of wind; whereas we now know that an active principle “menthol” contained in the plant, and which may be extracted from it as a camphoraceous oil, possesses in a marked degree antiseptic and sedative properties which are chemically hostile to rotting and becoming putrid, and preventive of a person suffering from indigestion.
