American Chestnut:
The American Chestnut is the only plant that is reported to have been used by an Indian tribe against whooping cough. It appears as if the Mohegans learned to use a tea of the leaves against this infectious coughing disease from the whites, who derived the remedy from an unknown source. Although Dr. Millspaugh wrote that chestnut leaves were used for whooping cough and it was then thought that they affected a "sedative action on the nerves of respiration," the Dispensatory of the United States of 1942 called this belief a superstition, adding, "there is ... no sufficient reason to believe them to possess any therapeutic value except that of a mild astringent." For this purpose the leaves were official in the U.S. Pharmacopoeia from 1873 to 1905. The dried leaves contain 9 percent tannic acid; they were gathered in the early fall and used for their astringent properties.
Despite its apparent lack of medicinal value, the chestnut tree is highly esteemed for its edible nuts and will be discussed in greater detail under "Earth Foods." This native variety rarely grows higher than eighty feet nor does the trunk often exceed a diameter of four feet. Exceptions do exist - in the late 1800s, one specimen in New York harbor was thought to be five hundred years old and was so large that it was then popularly called the elephant. An exceptionally broad chestnut tree, measuring twenty-two feet in diameter, was recorded near Seymour, Indiana, in 1880.
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