Did Lewis and Clark use any plants for medicine?

Answer 1

Most of the medicine used during the Lewis and Clark expedition was purchased prior to departure, and some of these were made from plants:

15 lbs. of Best powder's bark

4 oz. Powdered Ipecacuana

8 oz. Powder Jalap

8 oz. Powdered Rhubarb

However, in one instance, Lewis was desperate and had heard of the medicinal properties of choke cherries. On June 11, 1805, at Grog Spring, on the Missouri River, Lewis found himself with severe stomach pain and running a high fever, unable to march, and forced to make a camp of some willow boughs. He described his remedy: "having brought no medecine with me I resolved to try an experiment with some simples: and the Choke cherry which grew abundanly in the bottom first struck my attention; I directed a parsel of the small twigs to be geathered striped of their leaves, cut into pieces of about 2 inches in length and boiled in water until a strong black decoction of an astringent taste was produced; at sunset I took point (pint) of this decoction and about an hour after repeated the dze by 10 in the evening I was entirely releived from pain and in fact every symptom of the disorder forsook me; my fever abated, a gentle perspiration was produced and I had a comfortable nights rest."

Answer 2

15 lbs. of Best powder's bark

10 lbs. Epsom or Glauber Salts

4 oz. Calomel

12 oz. Opium

1.5 oz. Tartar emetic

8 oz. Borax

4 oz. Powdered Ipecacuana

8 oz. Powder Jalap

8 oz. Powdered Rhubarb

6 Best lancets

2 oz. White vitriol

4 oz. Lacteaum Saturni

4 Pewter Penis syringes

1 Flour of Sulphur

3 Clyster pipes

4 oz. Turlingtons Balsam

2 lbs. Yellow Bascilium

2 Sticks of Symple Diachylon

1 lb. Blistering Ointments

2 lbs. Nitre

2 lbs. Coperas

Answer 3

Successes: Categorized 122 new animals and 178 plants, mapped the geography, and achieved friendlier relations with the native.

Failure: They did not find a route to the Pacific Ocean completely by river.

Antelope bush

Aromatic Aster

Aromatic Sumac

Bearberry

Black greasewood

Blue Flax

Buffaloberry

Bur Oak

Broom Snakeweed

Canada Milk-vetch

Common Horsetail

Common Juniper

Common Monkey-flower

Creeping Juniper

Curly-top gumweed

Dwarf Sagebrush

Eastern Cottonwood

False Indigo

Fire-on-the-Mountain

Fringed sagebrush

Golden currant

Gumbo evening primrose

Indian tobacco

Lanceleaf sage

Large-flowered Clammyweed

Long-leaved Sagebrush

Meadow Anemone

Missouri milk-vetch

Moundscale

Needle-and-thread grass

Pasture sagewort

Pin Cherry

Ponderosa Pine

Purple Coneflower

Purple Prairie-clover

Rabbitbrush

Raccoon Grape

Red false mallow

Rigid Goldenrod

Rocky Mountain Beeplant

Rough Gayfeather

Shadscale

Silky Wormwood

Silver-leaf Scurfpea

Snow-on-the-mountain

Spiny Goldenweed

Thick-spike Gayfeather

Western Red Cedar

White Milkwort

Wild Alfalfa

Wild Four-o'clock

Wild Rice

Wild Rose