Sarsaparilla

The ancient Greeks and Romans considered European sarsaparilla an antidote to poisons.  But the herb was not popular in herbal healing until the 16th century, when Spanish explorers discovered the Caribbean species, a prickly (zarza) vine (parra) that was small (illa).  That description became our word sarsaparilla.  Caribbean and North American Indians used the herb to treat skin conditions, urinary complaints, and as a tonic to keep one young and vigorous, both physically and sexually.

In 1494 an epidemic of unusually virulent syphilis swept Europe, killing thousands, rather like the AIDS epidemic today.  Europeans considered the disease an import from the New World, and they looked to herbs from across the Atlantic to treat it.  They focused on sarsaparilla.

The conquistadors began shipping Mexican sarsaparilla back to Spain around 1530, and by 1600 it was widely used throughout Europe as a strengthening tonic and treatment for syphilis.  Sarsaparilla and syphilis have been entwined ever since.

Sarsaparilla enjoyed a meteoric rise in popularity.  Seventeenth-century English herbalist Nicholas Culpeper called it the treatment of choice for "the French disease," the English name for syphilis.  Echoing the ancients, he wrote: "If the juice of the berries be given to a new-born child, it shall never be hurt by poison."  Culpeper also recommended sarsaparilla for eye problems, head colds, gas pains, pimples, and "all manner of aches in the sinews or joints."

By 1800, many physicians denounced sarsaparilla as completely ineffective against syphilis, but their words fell on deaf ears.  Mid-19th-century trade records indicate Britain imported upwards of 150,000 pounds a year, much of it for treatment of syphilis.