Natural remedies and medication

YARROW – Homeo medicine

admin — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 15:54:17 +0000

Homeo medicine, other names: Achillea millefolium. Milfoil, Thousand-leaf, Nosebleed, Sanguinary

Its synonyms and its scientific name reflect its uses, its appearance and its legend: the yarrow cures wounds; its leaves are deeply cut into many segments ‘like the wispy feathers of young birds’ as Matthiolus described them; and it was fiery Achilles who is said to have been the first to make use of them to heal his companions’ wounds.

It grows abundantly in both lowland and mountain areas; you can find it at roadsides, on banks and waste places, in sunny meadows (it is an excellent fodder). Its erect hairy stems attain a height of 30 to 50 centimetres. They bear alternate somewhat downy leaves, their many segments in themselves much dissected, lending them a lacy appearance, and umbels of small white or pink flowers with yellow centres. The parts used are the leaves – which have a slight aromatic odour – and the flowering tips, picked during the flowering season (June to September) and dried in the shade.

It is considered as a specific for disorders of the circulation and the mucosae. It is, of course, known for its vulnerary action upon sores and wounds (cuts, injuries, varicose [...]

WORMWOOD

admin — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 00:02:21 +0000

Homeo medicine, other names: Artemisia absinthium. Bitter artemisia, Absinth, Old woman, Ajenjo

It is hard to imagine, when one conies across it growing wild by the wayside or in the dry and stony waste places it prefers, that this plant could, at the start of the century, have been at the root of a social scourge more deadly than the spreading use of drugs today. Nonetheless, until its manufacture was prohibited, in March 1915, the liqueur made from its essence wrought considerable havoc in all classes of society (its consumption in France increased from 6,713 hectolitres in 1873 to 360,000 in 1911).

‘Excessive drinking of absinthe’, said Doctor Cazin,1 ‘leads eventually to more pronounced and more permanent deterioration of the brain, a deeper degradation than that caused by ordinary alcoholism . . . Stupor, hebetude, appalling hallucinations, rapid deterioration of the mind, seem to be the characteristic effects of this substance: absinthism is twice as bad as alcoholism

But whilst absinthe taken in large amounts and a highly concentrated form becomes a poison that is rightly illegal, it is still nevertheless a valuable medicinal plant that you can employ without danger.

You can recognize it by its height (from 0*50 [...]

WOODRUFF

admin — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 00:25:10 +0000

Asperula odorata. Sweet woodruff, Woodroof,’ Waldmeister tea

Growing to a height of 15 to 50 centimetres, with dark green lanceolate leaves borne in whorls at intervals on the quadrangular stem and small white delicately scented flowers grouped in terminal clusters, the woodruff blooms in late spring in woods and moist shady places, forming, as one botanist poetically described it, ‘miniature milky ways’.

With the exception of lavender, no other dried herb exhales such a pleasant perfume as that of the woodruff, which evokes the odour of vanilla, new-mown hay and honey. It owes this fragrance to the presence, in its leaves and stems, of cournarin, an odorous principle also found in tonka beans and which is employed in perfumery and to lend aroma to certain tobaccos such as the Amsterdamer (it should be mentioned that today coumarin, like so many other things, is made synthetically).

However, do not be surprised if you cannot smell this very distinctive odour when you crush freshly-picked woodruff leaves between your fingers: the odorous principle develops with drying, and is consequently only perceptible and at its strongest when the plant is dried. It is this characteristic which inspired an English writer to observe: ‘The [...]

WOOD BETONY – Homeo medicine

admin — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 00:08:53 +0000

Homeo medicine, other names: Betonica officinalis. Bishopswort

The wood betony is a striking example of therapeutic snobbery: considered for centuries as a panacea, it was later completely abandoned because it was said to possess no virtues at all. In fact these attitudes are equally foolish – as are all extremes – for whilst it is obviously not, as the Latin writer Lucius Apulius claimed, the ‘infallible remedy’ for forty-six serious or incurable diseases (including rabies and paralysis), it can nevertheless help to relieve a few of our minor ills.

From ancient times right up to the nineteenth century, writers were forever singing its praises. Dioscorides and Galen extolled its extraordinary properties. Antonius Musa, physician to the emperor Augustus, devoted a treatise to it, in which he declared that wood betony is to be advocated equally for difficult confinements and the injuries resulting from road accidents (chariots, of course!), adding that it ‘preserves the souls and bodies of men and even those who go abroad at night from all dangers and from witchcraft also’. In the Middle Ages it was prescribed for gout, sciatica, rheumatism, stomach, kidney and liver pains, brain disorders, and it was said to be ‘good for [...]

WHEAT – natural herb remedies

admin — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 18:02:01 +0000

Homeo medicine, other names: Triticum sativus

Now that bread is no longer a sustenance (many doctors advise against it) and wheat, cultivated with the help of chemical fertilizers, is no longer the ‘mother’s milk’ of adults, it is hard to credit that they have played a not insignificant role in classic or family medicine.

Yet this is what a medical treatise of the eighteenth century has to say: ‘Everyone is aware of the common usage of wheat, which provides us with a food as useful as it is pleasant; it provides flour and the bread that is made from it, the husk of the crushed seed which we call bran and the starch which are daily employed in medicine.’

Our grandmothers incorporated wheat, in one form or another, in their good home natural herb remedies. So why not follow their example? – always providing you use proper wheat, biologically grown, that has not been treated with fertilizers or weedkillers, which you can buy in health food stores.

For infantile gastro-enteritis and convalescence following serious illness, cereal broth is an excellent means of nourishment. It is made by grinding equal parts of wheat, oats and barley in a mill and [...]

WATERCRESS

admin — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 00:01:56 +0000

Nasturtium officinale

In France we say that a bald man has no ‘cresson sur le caillou’, – an expression which perhaps derives from the fact that this cruciferous plant has for centuries been known as an excellent hair tonic.

The Salernitan school of medicine, the leading light of science in the Middle Ages, recommended rubbing the juice of watercress into the scalp to strengthen and thicken the hair, and one of the most common popular prescriptions for promoting hair growth is still to rub the scalp with a lotion composed of a mixture of 100 grammes of watercress juice with 100 grammes of alcohol (90°) and 10 grammes of geranium essence. The Salernitan doctors similarly advocated the use of watercress juice in the treatment of skin complaints, a treatment which has survived as a beauty treatment for freckles and for clearing the complexion (mix 60 grammes of watercress juice with 30 grammes of honey; strrain thtougth a cloth; dab on the face with a wad of cotton wool morning and evening).

But these are only the least of its virtues. Hippocrates held it to be stimulant and expectorant, Dioscorides believed it to be aphrodisiac, Ambroise Pare considered it the [...]

WALNUT

admin — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 22:07:59 +0000

Juglans regia

In 1810 Bodart wrote: ‘If the walnut grew only in the New World, we would hasten to include it among the most useful medicinal plants; but because it grows freely in our own countries, we would still disregard its different properties were they not called to our attention by illustrious practitioners.. .’* hi 1961, in his Lemons de biologie dans un pare, after summarizing the virtues of the walnut and in particular the remarkable antibiotic action of its fresh leaves in the treatment of anthrax (cured in three weeks) recorded in numerous cases and twice (1857 and 1880) announced at the Academy of Medicine, Professor Binet wrote: ‘It is a curious fact that no works on bacteriology, plant chemistry, medical matters, chemotherapy or antibiotics contain any reference to it at all. The walnut leaf has fallen into oblivion. Why?*

I shall not presume to answer this question, considering it was asked by a member of the Institute, and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris at the time. My sole aim in juxtaposing the two texts, which are separated by a century and a half, is to show how hard it is for a popular remedy, [...]

VIOLET – natural herb remedies

admin — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 22:15:34 +0000

Homeo medicine, other names: Viola odorata. Blue violet, Sweet violet

We can use every part of this plant which is so unobtrusive that it has long been the very emblem of modesty.

The flowers – which enter into the classic composition of the ‘pectoral flowers’ – are prescribed for colds, bronchitis, whooping cough and irritations of the respiratory tract, either in a mild decoction (5 to 10 grammes of dried flowers to 1 litre of water; cold-soak for a few minutes, bring to the boil and leave to infuse for ten minutes; 3 or 4 cupfuis per day, between meals), or as a syrup or violet honey (pour 1 litre of boiling water on to 150 to 200 grammes of fresh petals in a glass or china receptacle, and leave covered to macerate for ten to twelve hours; press and strain through a cloth; leave to decant or filter through a filter-paper; to the liquid thus obtained add twice its weight in sugar or honey; thicken in a bain-marie, skimming carefully (especially if using honey), until it acquires the consistency of syrup, and store in a stoppered jar; 3 or 4 coffee-spoonfuls per day, between meals – this preparation is [...]

VERVAIN

admin — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 17:53:57 +0000

Verbena officinalis. Verbena, Holy herb, Juno’s tears

Vervain was for long the foremost magic herb, so much so that at the end of the sixteenth century Matthiolus wrote:

‘Sorcerers lose their senses at the mention of this herb. For they say that those who are rubbed with it will obtain all they ask, and that it will cure fevers and cause a person to love another and, in short, that it cures all illnesses and more besides.’

The Romans had dedicated it to Venus (they called it Veneris herba: herb of Venus or Veneris vena: luck of Venus) for they believed it to have the property of reigniting the fires of a dying love; they offered lucky nosegays of vervain at the new year, they steeped it in the water with which banqueting rooms were sprinkled so that the guests would be the merrier. The Druids, before offering sacrifices, would wash their altars with an infusion of vervain flowers. Among the Teutons, the priestesses wore crowns of vervain.

Later it entered into the preparation of most philtres (especially love-philtres), was used to foretell the future, to cast spells or to lift them (for example, the huntsman, who thought he [...]

VALERIAN – Homeo medicine

admin — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 18:04:47 +0000

Homeo medicine, other names: Valeriana officinalis. Setwall, All-heal

The mention of valerian is invariably greeted with such phrases as ‘the most perfect of herbal sedatives’, ‘the one plant to prescribe for nervous subjects’, ‘the oldest method of treating nervous disorders’.

Commonly found beside rivers and streams, in moist meadows, woods and copses, on grassy slopes in lowland and mountain areas, it is a decorative plant with fluted, slightly downy stems that grow to a height of up to 1,50 metres, its opposite, deeply divided leaves, lanceolate and toothed, its small pink – very occasionally white – flowers, grouped in dense terminal inflorescences resembling umbels (in bloom from June to August).

The only part of the plant that is used is the root, which is actually a rhizome 2 to 3 centimetres long, yellowish on the outside, whitish on the inside, with numerous rootlets measuring from 10 to 20 centimetres. It is gathered in September to October and dried in the shade; however it is known that drying deprives it of a part of its active principles, which is why it is often prepared as a tincture; it has a characteristic odour, unpleasant to us, but so appreciated by cats that [...]