If our pioneering ancestors could see us now they would be disgusted at how soft and helpless we have become. Europeans that colonised Australia after settling in Botany Bay gradually moved further inland to remote outposts. These people had to take care of their health needs as problems arose, there, as a paucity of doctors even back at Botany Bay; there were no doctors out at these remote areas. Settlers soon learned to make their own medicine from the various herbs growing in their area. By sharing knowledge their medical base soon expanded.
More than 200 years on we can still find indigenous people using the herbs that grow in their region for their health needs. People living in third world countries find surviving day to day consumes what little money they have so they still depend on their countries traditional medicine, and why wouldn’t they, these medicines have stood the test of time, in some instances many thousands of years. Where do all of these wonderful new medicines come from? For over 5 thousand years the Chinese treasured Ephedrine sinica or mahuang, as a treatment for allergies, colds, asthma, and as an anti- inflammatory, this is where ephedrine was isolated in 1923 and commercial manufacture of the pharmaceutical drug began. Morphine was isolated from the Opium Poppy, salicylates from willow bark, and quinine from the artemesia bush.
Plants are chemical factories that can produce treatments for everything from cystitis to head lice.
We have developed into a pill for every ill culture. Whatever happened to the pioneering spirit of taking responsibility for ourselves? Grow your own medicine, herbs like garlic, chillies, ginger and Echinacea are all easy to grow and can be added to a chicken soup for cold treatments, as they do in China.
Licorice for sore throat, mucus membranes, aloe vera for skin disorders, comfrey for ankle sprain and bone
1: Phytomedicine. 2004 Sep;11(6):470-7.Links
Efficacy and tolerance of a comfrey root extract (Extr. Rad. Symphyti) in the treatment of ankle distorsions: results of a multicenter, randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind study.
Koll R, Buhr M, Dieter R, Pabst H, Predel HG, Petrowicz O, Giannetti B, Klingenburg S, Staiger C.
Merck Selbstmedikation GmbH, Roesslerstr. 96, D-64293 Darmstadt, Germany.
Comfrey (Symphytum officinale L.) is a medicinal plant with anti-inflammatory, analgesic and tissue regenerating properties. In a double-blind, multicenter, randomized, placebo-controlled, group comparison study on patients suffering from unilateral acute ankle sprains (n = 142, mean age 31.8 years, 78.9% male), the percutaneous efficacy of an ointment of comfrey extract (Kytta-Salbe f, four treatments per day for 8 days) was confirmed decisively. Compared to placebo, the active treatment was clearly superior regarding the reduction of pain (tonometric measurement, p<0.0001, as the primary efficacy variable) and ankle edema (figure-of-eight method, p = 0.0001). Statistically significant differences between active treatment and placebo could also be shown for ankle mobility (neutral zero method), and global efficacy. Under active treatment, no adverse drug reactions were reported. The good local and global tolerance of the trial medication could also be confirmed. The study results are consistent with the known pre-clinical and clinical data concerning comfrey.
PMID: 15500257 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] PubMed
How about "Milk Thistle" " St. Mary's thistle" botanical name silybum marianum for liver disorders, one of today's problems is the huge cultural divide between pharmaceutical medicine, which is seen to be scientific and proven treatments and herbal medicine, which is considered flaky because of some of the ratbags that are drawn to it. Tinkabel, Gumleaf and Feral Cheryl, with slogans such as "tread softly on the Earth", are not the sort of people I would go to for health treatments, but I would seek out University trained Naturopaths and Herbalists, and see if they follow science or have merely passed it at Uni as a means to an end. Always seek out a Naturopath or Herbalist to ensure you have the right dosage and drug interaction advice.
" l. 1999 Feb;94(2):545-6.
Milk thistle (Silybum marianum) for the therapy of liver disease.
Flora K, Hahn M, Rosen H, Benner K.
Division of Gastroenterology, Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland 97201-3098, USA.
Silymarin, derived from the milk thistle plant, Silybum marianum, has been used for centuries as a natural remedy for diseases of the liver and biliary tract. As interest in alternative therapy has emerged in the United States, gastroenterologists have encountered increasing numbers of patients taking silymarin with little understanding of its purported properties. Silymarin and its active constituent, silybin, have been reported to work as antioxidants scavenging free radicals and inhibiting lipid peroxidation. Studies also suggest that they protect against genomic injury, increase hepatocyte protein synthesis, decrease the activity of tumor promoters, stabilize mast cells, chelate iron, and slow calcium metabolism. In this article we review silymarin's history, pharmacology, and properties, and the clinical trials pertaining to patients with acute and chronic liver disease.
PMID: 9468229 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Cheers
