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About Hardy Shrub Roses
About Heathers
About Flowering Crabs
wildlife habitat
Annuals Biennials Perennials
Culinary Herbs
The Healing Herbs
The Fragrant Herbs
Shakespearean and Bible Herbs
Do you Really Need A Tiller
Insect Attack
Flowers for Cutting
Pruning Pointers
Houseplants Clean the Air
Recipes Fresh from the Garden
The Gold Plated Gardener
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| The Healing Herbs |
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| About the time that our earliest ancestors were discovering the culinary uses of herbs, they were also learning that some had healing properties. This knowledge, depending on time, place, and tribal customs, may have been passed down among the women or kept in the hands of shamans-- but it was never lost. Although penicillin was not discovered until World War II, it was known since the Crusades that an application of moldy rye bread to an infected wound would heal it. Some of the herbs in my own garden have been grown for their medicinal value since Greek and Roman times. In fact, many of our pharmaceuticals today are still derived from plant materials. When our forebears first arrived in the Colonies, they brought with them the seeds and plants it had been their custom to grow in 17th century England. Every Early American housewife had her backyard garden where she was expected to cultivate whatever was required to provide for her family's needs. She grew her own insect repellents (pennyroyal, tansy, wormwood, southernwood) and rat poison (monkshood)...the dyes she needed for her linen and woolen cloth (agrimony, madder, calendula, woad)...furniture polish (lemon balm, sweet Cecily)...scouring pads (horsetail)...herbs for curdling milk and coloring cheeses...the "strewing" herbs to freshen her chambers. She grew herbs for seasoning, for preserving meats, for laying out the dead, for aid in childbirth. Most importantly, she grew her own medicine chest -- the herbs from which she made her teas, simples and worts, the only cures available to her. It was her responsibility to maintain her family's health and to cure them when they fell ill. Doctors were scarce and were only called in a true emergency, and when they arrived, they expected the housewife to have her store of plant materials from which they prescribed. The good wife probably had among her most precious possessions a little book which she called her "herball," or perhaps her "receipts." Copied from her mother's, it was a collection of proven remedies for common complaints. It might have contained formulas for soothing teas (chamomile, mint, lemon balm, scullcap), for de-worming children (hyssop), for arresting diarrhea, for killing lice, for reducing fever, for toothache, for alleviating the pangs of childbirth or aiding in "female complaints." If a young maid got in "trouble," her mother brewed her a tea made from a common garden herb that, while it could not restore her lost maidenhood, would prevent the loss from becoming apparent. Another common herb, tansy, was reputed to have the opposite effect: drunk as a tea, it was said to prevent miscarriages. Many of these herbal remedies were based on the Doctrine of Signatures: the notion that God created what was useful to the human race, and left a "signature" on the plant to indicate its use. Thus Pulmonaria, or lungwort, was thought to be helpful in respiratory diseases because its mottled leaves resembled lung tissue; ginseng was thought to be a general purpose tonic because its root looked like the human body. This kind of lore has been discarded as superstition; however, hundreds of other herbal medicines have been proven efficacious through centuries of trial and error. An infusion of foxglove was prescribed to stimulate a flagging heart; digitalis is still used for that purpose today. A derivative of Elecampane, a common wild flower along Maine roadsides, is still used for respiratory ailments. The roots of Echinacea furnish a powerful boost to the immune system and are commonly available in Europe, though not officially recognized by the U.S.F.D.A. Today we have left the healing arts to professionals, and wisely so. Herbal doses of the past, while efficacious, were inexact. The effectiveness of the remedy varied with the strength of the plant materials used--which depended on soil, growing conditions, time of harvest and storage. Recipes were also inexact; in 17th century herbals we find phrases like "a pinch," "the bigth of a walnut," "enough to put on a penknife's point," a small bunch." Yet these remedies did work, and lately America has seen a revival of interest in herbal healing. While herbs do not produce the immediate and dramatic results we are accustomed to expect from modern medicine, neither do they produce the sometimes dangerous side effects of powerful drugs. In many parts of the country, certified clinical herbalists are working-- alone or in concert with doctors--to utilize this ancient lore in modern ways. |
| Palmyra | ME | 04965-4033 |
 shepherdsgdn@hotmail.com |
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| Visitors: 03327 |