Throughout Britain and Ireland, this native plant has been used in folk medicine to relieve pain, including stomach pain (a use immortalized by Beatrix Potter in the "Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies"!), toothache, sore eyes,, neuralgia, "stitches" , and as a general mild sedative. It is sometimes known as Roman chamomile or English chamomile, and it was introduced to North America by early British settlers. However, its place there in folk medicine was usurped by the German chamomile, Matricaria recutita. German chamomile is estimated to be the most popular herb in use among Mexicans. It was introduced there, as manzanilla, by the Spanish in the eighteenth century. In other regions in the North American folk records it is difficult to know which chamomile is referred to.

Meyer (1985), for example, gives more than thirty folk medical uses for chamomile. Probably most of these refer to the German chamomile. They include relief of asthma and croup; teething in infants; indigestion, nausea and bad breath, menstrual pain, sore or weeping eyes, headache, measles, mumps, bites and stings, piles and rheumatism. The UCLA folklore archive reveals a variety of uses for chamomile, including stomach pain and colds. The Native Americans used chamomile for abortions, ulcers, and unsettled stomachs. The related pineapple weed (Matricaria discoidea), native to North America but not to Britain, was used by the Eskimo for colds and indigestion, by the Costanoan Indians for stomach pain and fever, and by the Shuswap Indians for colds and the heart. For other uses in the Native American tradition Pineapple weed became naturalized in Britain in the nineteenth century, and there is a single record of its use in folk medicine in Wales, where it was used to treat boils