Remember Rosemary - the memory tonic 10/07/2010
 Rosemary (Rosemarinus officinalis) An evergreen shrub native of Mediterranean countries, rosemary likes well drained, chalky soil in full sun and sheltered from the wind. It grows to about 1.5m tall and is typically found in coastal areas and its name actual means ‘dew of the sea’. Traditionally the herb is associated with friendship and remembrance, and it has played important part in ceremonies of marriage, love and death – it was woven into posies and veils for brides as a symbol of love and loyalty. In Italy and Portugal, Rosemary was placed in the slippers of the bride and groom so they would remain loyal to each other. A sprig of Rosemary was given to mourners at funerals as a symbol of immortality and remembrance to place in the coffin as it was lowered into the ground. Is said if Rosemary grows in your garden you will never be without friends and there is a widespread belief that a rosemary bush will only grow in the garden of a house where the wife is the dominant partner. Today Rosemary is mainly used internally as a digestive herb for flatulence and stimulating the liver. Drink a rosemary tea after food to help stimulate digestion and prevent wind. It is also a powerful nerve stimulator and is used for strengthening memory and lifting depression. Its circulatory properties make it good for chronic headaches when taken as infusion and will also help prevent hair loss if you rinse your hair with a cool infusion of rosemary, as it will stimulate the circulation in your scalp. Rosemary infusion can also be used to give dark hair extra lustre and darken light hair. Use a warm, strong infusion of rosemary to make a compress for bruises, aches and sprained muscles. The rosemary will stimulate blood flow to the area, improving healing times, and also acts as an analgesic, reducing pain in the area. Rosemary essential oil is also used as a tonic for the nerves, the heart and circulation. It can be used to rekindle energy and improve concentration – often used by students before exams. Just add 2-3 drops to 10ml of base oil and rub into the forehead or temples to improve concentration. It’s painkilling properties also help dull the pain of arthritis, rheumatism and neuralgia. However rosemary oil is a powerful abortifacient so should never be used on pregnant women and it’s powerful effect on the nerves means it is not suitable for epileptics. 1 Comment Cleavers - Mother nature's cleaner 08/06/2010
 A very distinctive and common plant that springs up in May with long, slender stems and whirls of leaves that cling to anything – hence its other common name, stick-willy. Children traditionally throw the plant at each other and it the stems stick, that indicated the child has a sweetheart and when it falls to the ground, it will form the initial of the sweetheart. Commonly seen by the side of roads, hedgerows and fields, it grows rapidly and climbs up to the top of hedges. The lance-shaped leaves spread from the stalk in a rosette. All the aerial parts are used medicinally and should be harvested in May or June and dried in an airy room away from sunlight. People traditionally used cleavers to feed to hens, ducks and geese – hence the other name of goosegrass. Horses and cows also love it. In Sweden they use the roasted seeds as substitute for coffee and the stalks as a sieve. A matted handful of stems can be used as simple sieve to strain hairs and dirt from milk or water. Cleavers has been used in medicine for centuries. Disocorides, the Greek herbalist, recommended it for swellings and ear ache. The Celtic druids used it for skin eruptions, boils, swellings, gout and inflammation. They advised using the juice and washing the skin to rid the skin of spots. They also used it to speed up the elimination process. Dr Locke, an eclectic herbalist, recommended it as a diuretic. The Doctrine of Signatures, invented by the Greek herbalists, says that plants could be used cure the parts of the body they represent. It was thought that the long slender stems of cleavers look like long tubes – and so it was used to clear the lymph tubes of the body, which is how it is used by herbalists today. Herbalists use cleavers as a lympho-alterative – that is it stimulates the lymphatic system, altering it to restore normal function. The lymphatic system is a network of tubes that collects all the fluid (lymph) that drains from the blood vessels and carries away waste products and toxins from the cells. If not working properly, the toxins build up in the cells, causing a range of problems. Cleavers has been shown to reduce fever, heat and swelling from the lymph system. It also acts on problems from ‘clogged’ kidneys such as gout and kidney stones. Because it cleans the lymph system and stimulates the kidneys to remove waste products, it is used for chronic skin conditions such as eczema, psoriasis and acute infections such as tonsillitis and swollen glands caused by viruses, etc. Cleavers and Clover Cleansing Cordial A variation of a traditional cordial recipe that combines the blood purifying properties of clover and the lymphatic action of cleavers with the cleansing and ‘fat-burning’ properties of cider vinegar.Ingredients 10g of red clover 15g of fresh cleavers 450 ml water 150g honey 40ml cider vinegar ' Wash the cleavers thoroughly. And place in a pan with the water and clover. Bring to the boil and simmer for 15 mins with the lid on. When cool, strain the mixture, squeezing the herbs to extract all the goodness.Return the liquid to the pan and simmer very slowly until the mixture has reduced by half.Stir in the honey and the vinegar and continue to simmer for 20 mins until thickened. Pour into sterilized bottles. The mixture will keep for 6 months in the fridge.Dosage. Take 2-3 teaspoons three times a day as part of a detox regime. Alternatively add 2-3 teapoons to hot or cold water to make a digestif cordial. Chickweed - the 'star' of herbal remedies. 15/05/2010
 Thought of as a weed in many gardens, Chickweed will grow happily on most sites and spread rapidly. This low lying annual grows to around 40cm tall and flowers throughout the year. The small, white, star-like flowers are said to open regularly at nine o’clock in the morning on fine days and close at nine in the evening. This has been used to predict the weather – if it opens fully, there will be no rain for 4 hours, but if they stay shut, it will rain. Chickweed is so called because birds and chickens are very fond of the plant and the seed is also used to feed tame birds. The Latin name Stellaria, meaning star, comes from the star like flowers. The whole plant is highly nutritious and rich in Vitamin A and C and several minerals. The plant is regarded as a delicacy in Europe and eaten in salads or cooked like spinach. It has a mild, fruity taste. In Europe it is given as a blood tonic in the spring and the Swiss eat it to strengthen the heart. It used to be given to those with consumption and to malnourished children to build them up. The plant has long been used as a cooling, demulcent herb. Culpeper recommends using the plant juice for ‘all heats and redness of the eye’. It is still used in this way by herbalists today – as a cooling emollient it is perfect for hot, itchy skin or other inflammatory conditions such as boils. It can be used in creams or applied directly to the skin as a cooled poultice. An infusion of chickweed can be mixed with witch hazel to apply to chicken pox to relieve itching and the cream is perfect for insect bites, drawing splinters, scalds, stings and eczema – in fact any hot, itchy condition. Use externally for:
Nettles 22/04/2010
 Most people think of nettle as a troublesome weed that sting the unwary or barelegged hiker. However nettle has long been used for food, medicine and textiles production and it is a vital part of a modern herbalist’s dispensary. Nettle has been used from the Bronze Age to make a linen–like cloth and in Medieval times the herb was called ‘poor mans linen’. With the advent of imported cotton and flax from America, nettle ‘linen’ fell out of fashion. However, the production of cloth from nettle was revived in the Second World War, when cotton imports were threatened. The Romans originally introduced nettles to England and used it to treat the soldier’s rheumatism, caused by the country’s damp climate. The cure involved whipping the affected joint with the stinging nettles. This cure for rheumatism is still used in many parts of the UK and is called ‘urtication’, after the Latin, ‘Urtica’ which means I burn. Even though investigations into this method of using nettles have shown it to reduce pain in the long-term, you have to be a brave soul to carry it out! However, modern day herbalists still use the properties of nettle as an anti-inflammatory and blood purifier to treat arthritic conditions, often in combination with Turmeric. Galen, the Roman physician, recommended the friction of the leaves against the skin to stir up ‘natural heat, to stimulate desire and cure impotence. In France today they still suggest that a young man rolls naked in a bed of nettles before he goes courting, but perhaps not on a first date! Nettles make an excellent food, especially soup, and can be used like spinach. They are full of vitamins A and C as well as iron and make a particularly good spring tonic after the winter. Because of their high iron content they are particularly good for anaemia and a useful iron tonic can be made by packing nettle leaves into a nettle tincture with apricots and leaving to steep for a few days. Nettle is also an astringent, so it dries and tones tissues. It is often used in hair conditioners, as it is believed to stop hair loss. The famous herbalist Nicholas Culpeper used it to stop nosebleeds by placing the leaves up the nostrils. Nettle has many other actions and is used by herbalist for a variety of conditions. Nettle is strong diuretic and is especially good for helping excrete uric acid, so is used for gout. It is an anti-allergic and is often prescribed for hay fever and it also helps lower blood sugar levels, so can be used in sugar dependent diabetes So before you pull up or spray that nettle in your garden, just think of all the things you could be using it for instead. Dandelion - Not such a weed! 28/03/2010
 This bright yellow flower is often the curse of gardeners and makes an unwanted appearance on many lawns. However, the history and lore of this useful herb may make you look at it in a new light. There is a story from Celtic lore, for example, which tells the origin of the flower. When man first appeared on the earth they couldn’t see the fairies, elves and ‘little folk’ who already lived there, so kept treading on them. To avoid this, the dwarves and the gnomes went underground to hide, whilst the elves went to live amongst the rocks. However, the fairies wanted to stay above ground to play in the open spaces in the sunshine. In order to avoid being seen by humans, they turned themselves into bright, yellow dandelions that grow in open sunny spaces. This connection with fairies may explain why it has been associated with good luck and it is said that if you rubbed yourself all over with dandelion you will be welcome everywhere and your wishes will come true. The flower’s name comes from the shape of the leaves, which are thought to resemble the teeth of a lion, or in French le dent de lion – which became corrupted to dand-e-lion. The Latin name for dandelion, Taraxacum, comes from the Greek word Taraxo meaning disorder and takos meaning pain, pointing to its early use as medicinal herb. In fact, although Avicenna the Arabian herbalist used dandelion in the 10th century, it did not appear in Western herbals until the 13th Century when it first got its English name. Of course, many people still call dandelion ‘wet the bed’ or ‘piddlybeds’ and in France it is often called Pissenlit. These names point to its use as a diuretic and modern herbalist make use of this to treat water retention, high blood pressure and kidney disorders. In fact dandelion is one of the best and most effective diuretics and because the leaves are high in potassium, it increases urine output without depleting the body of potassium as so many diuretic drugs do. However, dandelion leaves should never be used to replace drugs without consulting an herbalist or your GP. Dandelion leaves make an excellent salad herb and the young leaves are commonly used in salads on the Continent to help stimulate the digestion, though this has never been the case in the UK. Culpeper, the famous 17th century herbalist noted, “You will see here what virtues this common herb hath and it is the reason the French and Dutch so often eat them in the spring; and now if you look a little farther, you may plainly see, without a pair of spectacles, that foreign physicians are not so selfish as ours are but are more communicative of the virtues of plants to people.” The dandelion root is a gentle liver herb and is used to stimulate the appetite and to treat constipation. It promotes the flow of bile and is used for gallstones as well as to treat gout, arthritis and clears the body of toxins and excess hormones in conditions such as acne or PMS. It’s gentle stimulation of the liver also makes it an ideal hung-over cure. Sage - a natural healer 06/03/2010
 Sage is a well-known culinary herb, commonly grown in many herb gardens or pots. However, few people are aware of sage’s medicinal qualities or the high regard in which it was once held. Sage is a native of Southern Europe and likes a sandy, well-drained compost in a sunny position. It’s official name,Salvia, comes from the Latin salvare, which means, ‘to save’ and points to its long use as a medicinal herb. The Ancient Greeks believed sage could render man immortal and there are numerous legends of long-lived Princes who regularly drank cups of sage tea whilst an Anglo-Saxon manuscript says ‘why should a man die whilst sage grows in his garden.’ The Romans considered it one of the sacred herbs and harvesting the leaves was an important ritual. The leaves had to be cut using a bronze or silver knife and harvesters had to be barefoot, clean and dressed in white tunics. In the 18th century the Chinese prized sage so much they would trade one crate of sage for three of their finest tea. So what makes sage so sought after? Well, the plant contains powerful antiseptic oils and is still used for sore throats and mouth ulcers. Pouring boiling water on fresh sage leaves provides an excellent inhalant for infected sinuses. Its anti-microbial properties could also explain its use in stuffing with onion (which has similar properties) in the days when meat wasn’t always fresh. It also has the added bonus of being an excellent carminative, which soothes and calms the digestive system. But it’s not just its ability to kill germs that makes sage special. Sage also means wisdom and the herb has long been associated with longevity and restoring memory in the elderly. Research has shown that sage has the ability to reduce the action of an enzyme associated with dementia and medical herbalists often use sage, together with rosemary, to help patient’s with memory problems. It has been shown to significantly increase memory function in patients with Alzheimer. However, before you start eating lots of sage, you should be aware that it contains small amounts of Thujone, the chemical in Absinthe which makes drinkers of this liqueur go mad. So sage shouldn’t be taken in large doses or for more than 2 weeks at a time. Also unique in herbs, sage stops sweating so is used a lot by herbalists to treat hot flushes in menopausal women. However, it has a powerful effect on the uterus and is used during childbirth to expel the placenta, so should never be used during pregnancy. The famous herbalist, Culpeper, recommends a decoction of the leaves and branches to help bring on women’s periods and expel the placenta after birth. He also recommends the decoction made with wine “takes away the itching of the testicles, if they be bathed therewith”. |
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