HERB - Wemon Cycle issues

[Kathleen H. Keeler]

 Culpeper,
>while great for period info, is rather risky to use for serious stuff. Some
>of his recommendations we now know are not helpful, sometimes even harmful.
<>
>                    Ldy Diana

	This list is of Medieval hobbyists.  I have been anxious about
people recommending herbs without seeing the patient or knowing what other
conditions might be involved. (To those who do know her, I apologise). When
the complaint is the kind you'd take unknown over the counter drugs from
the pharmacy for, then experimenting with herbs makes sense. If you see
doctors for it, then a licensed herbalist or TCM (traditional Chinese
medicine) practitioner seems more appropriate.  Western prescription
medicine is still something like 50% bottled plant products, and most of
the rest is chemists imitating plants. In short, plants contain powerful
medicines.  Dabbling with serious medicinal herbs is risky:  spend a lot of
time reading if you go that route (human physiology as well as herbal
formulas) or consult someone with training (and, ideally, a license to
advise you--tho not all states have licensed herbalists tho).

	Although plants are effective, that doesn't mean herbals are good
sources of information. Medieval sources should not be used in modern
healing (more below).  American herbalism was a forgotten art until about
1985. Writers copied each other and there were very few practitioners to
tell them if something they wrote was wrong.  Use something published in
the 90's if you want to avoid the errors of past years.  The recent
outpouring of interest has made the recent stuff very good indeed.  The
European herbal tradition is slightly better, but beware of confusion of
American and European common names!  And the American species of whatever
won't be the same as the European.  The Chinese tradition is unbroken for
over 2000 years and has a deep experience base:  those are good sources if
you can understand the information.

Re: Medieval herbals and modern herbal medicine. Don't use them! They call
post Period the Renaissance for a reason.  Modern experimental science is
post Period.  The philosophies underlying Medieval healing were 1) pray for
divine healing, 2) humoral theory and 3) doctrine of signatures.  Prayer
doesn't show in the herbals, but is still valid. Humoral theory was long
ago discredited (the similarities of the Chinese symptoms have more to do
with translation of untranslatable Chinese terms that real similarity).
Doctrine of signatures is that God labeled each plant to show humans how to
use it:  garlic for the throat beause it is hollow, camomile for the eyes
because the flower looks like an eye. That doesn't work either.  They got
some stuff right, but its mixed in with lots of errors.  You can work out
which to use with a modern herbal but why not skip directly to the modern
herbal?

	In 12th C England, I'd advise Christina to go to her priest,
confess her sins and follow his instructions.  I might also send her to a
university educated physician, who would cast her horoscope and prescribe
from that.  Maybe he'd look at a urine sample but he didn't need to see her
personally (which might be improper anyway).  I don't suppose he'd bleed
her for a "insufficient bleeding" problem. tho that method of balancing the
humors was used in all kinds of contexts. The prescription would be from a
herbal like Dioscorides, likely some reasonably complex formula as a tea
(if it was simple you wouldn't need to pay the high fees.).  If she ignored
those and went to village wise woman, she'd probably get a herbal formula
(tea) and a couple  of charms to recite.

Cheers,
Agnes
Mag Mor, Calontir OL herbalism,
modernly professor of biology (occassionally I lecture this stuff tho'
college students aren't much interested in the Middle Ages part) and wife
of a licensed TCM practitioner--which should explain some of where I'm
coming from.


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