HERB - Menstrual Cramps -- the disertation

[Gaylin Walli]

Mistress Agnes wrote
>Yes, I think so. My husband is a licensed acupuncturist and I think he
>said they know it but have a lot of herbs that are preferred over it.

Actually, I was sort of hoping someone had read some of the
period Chinese herbals, but thanks! I wonder how much of a shift
in beliefs wrt health and happiness has occured from the time of
writing the first herbals and what is documented today. Presumeably
a lot, but then how much have the treatments and identifications
changed? I suspect not as much as we would think. I wish there were
some publications today in English detailing the Chinese research.
I have no hope of learning Chinese in this lifetime.

>Dioscorides is long on remedies for inducing menstruation or stopping
>it, or halting labor or inducing labor, or expelling the afterbirth,
>etc.

Do you know if John Riddle's _Dioscorides on Pharmacy and Medicine_
includes this? I admit to not having read Dioscorides at all and
am trying to fill holes in my collection of manuscripts to account
for this.

>I think there's a lot in Macer too.

Macer? This is one with which I am unfamiliar. Could you elaborate
for me please? (I hate knowing there's something I might not have
in der uber list of documents i must read or see before I die.)

>Frequently we get Culpeper and Gerard in condensed editions--perhaps its
>something modern editors prefer to delete?

Perhaps the deletions and condensing were a result of the Victorian
sensiblity movement?

I've got the unabridged Culpepper, but it's notoriously hard to find
anything in that book. You really have to be a student of his work to
be familiar enought with it. As for Gerard? Well, I tried to get
it for Christmas, but my Da' got me a book on the resplendence of
the Spanish monarchy instead. Who was I to complain? :) I'm saving
my pennies.
Jasmine de Cordoba, Midrealm
jasmine at infoengine.com or g.walli at infoengine.com

"Si enim alicui placet mea devotio, gaudebo; si autem nulli placet,
memet ipsam tamen juvat quod feci." -- Hroswitha of Gandersheim
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