HERB - Re: treatment varieties and misconceptions

[Gaylin Walli]

Agnes wrote:

>So for all those reasons, I'd argue that medicine was pretty bad by modern
>standards, even allowing for our tendency to think of ourselves as "wise" and
>everyone before us as "foolish".

Agreed. By modern standards. But looking across the whole continuum
that we see, I think there's a tendency for people to focus on
those things that (1) they don't understand and (2) that seem gross.

>Are we seeing the same glass as half full and half empty?

I think so. The way I'm looking at it right now, there were some
really great advances in medicine. Some things were documented
that probably wouldn't have been documented. Some discoveries
made, such as leeching, which have driven our medicinal research
today. And some were just plain crap, as you've pointed out.

My great concern is that we combat the gross misconceptions that
seem inherent in people's attitudes towards the Middle Ages. As
children, or at least when I was a child, the easiest way to explain
the Middle Ages was to say "they didn't bathe, they had rotten meat,
the doctor's sucked your blood out with worms, and look how much
better you have it now than they did." These statements should be
classified as "lies my elementary school teacher told me."

Unfortunately, many adults today take them to heart and only remember
these things. Father Guido Sarducci used to do a bit on Saturday
Night Live (am I dating myself here) where he joked about what people
remebered of their college education topics. Spanish: habla espanol.
Business: supply and demand. I think the same is true of the topics
of medicine and advances of those time periods. Leeches: blood
letting for everything. Bathing: people didn't do it. Meat: no way
to preserve it so heavy spices.

>I send people to modern herbals for healing because they're filtering
>out the stuff that doesn't work and if its healing you want, go to
>the best possible sources.

Agreed. And it's the same thing that I would do, most likely.

>Are you looking at the stuff in between the stuff I want people to
>avoid?

I think what I want to know is what's on the continuum. I'm learning,
albeit slowly. Why did they choose to use barrow's grease in an
ointment rather than just hog's grease? (Haven't found the answer to
that one yet.) Why would they use leeching during certain times and
for certain treatments? (Lowering dangerously high blood pressure was
one reason.) Why would some doctors know that urine of a person with
diabetes might be sweet and recommend then that the person avoid
sugar? (They had to taste the urine, of course.)

These kinds of questions are at the heart of the learning for me. And
I think that makes me an odd duck, in some way. Many of the people that
I encounter with an interest in herbs in the Society seem to focus
only on what plants were used and whether or not we're still allowed
to use them. There's nothing wrong with that at all, but it's not
where my interest lies. Selfishly, I want more. I want to know the
WHY behind these choices. For me (and this may not be true for other
people), simply finding an herb, saying "Oh, goody, they used it and
it's still safe" is akin to reading the encyclopedia entry on any
topic and then claiming you know all the relevant information about
it. For some people, they truly do know all that's relevent to them.
Me, well, I need more.

Why do I suddenly feel like Don Quixote? (I am I Doña Iasmin, I come
from Cordoba, my research it calls and I go.)

>This discussion prompts me to pull out facsimilie editions and do a
>line by line analysis.  I will, but it won't be this weekend.

So what will you focus on?

Jasmine, jasmine at infoengine.com
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