Herbs and the Fountain of Youth

I have friends who are always pressing old cookbooks upon me as gifts. “You can never have too many cookbooks,” says Bernita, who found this little treasure — a pamphlet, really — in some dusty old thrift store.

Actually, you can have too many cookbooks and I have to occasionally weed out my groaning bookshelves and give away some of my collection. But I’m particularly fond of Herbs and the Fountain of Youth by Claudia V. James, an authoress who apparently never wrote anything after this book was published in the late 1940s. Why would she have to? Mrs. James accomplished what Ponce de Leon could not do: She discovered the Fountain of Youth! (But it was Leon, I should note, who had an apartment building named after him on the Country Club Plaza. As far as real estate goes, James is practically forgotten).

And no one, alas, remembers the syndicated column that Mrs. James penned for many years, “Sparks from the Health Anvil,” even if it did inspire this 79-page booklet — which is still offered for sale by online book collectors for about four bucks.

A friend of mine insists that only one herb truly provides all the benefits of a “fountain of youth” and that herb, unfortunately, is illegal. But Mrs. James (who doesn’t mention that herb in her booklet) provides youth-creating alternatives including parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. Her favorites include alfalfa (“The Father of All Foods!”), amaranthus (it supposedly cures venereal diseases), burnet (“It preserves the body in health and the spirit in vigor” and cures canker sores too), dandelion, dill (she says it strengthens the brain), and, of course, the multiple uses for fragrant mint: “It helps digestion and … softens hard arteries and stops gonorrhea.”

I had to roll my eyes at some of Mrs. James herbal advice, like her claim that peach pits, crushed and boiled in vinegar will, when applied to the scalp “marvelously makes the hair grow again.” Her weight loss secret? Kelp.

“I was rather shocked to find a man of renown,” writes James, “express an opinion that cosmic rays are the cause of some disease. There is nothing wrong with the rays. The fault is that we are not in harmony with the radiance surrounding us.”

I feel better already.