HERB - OnHealth herbal index

[Jenne Heise]

Jadwiga said:
> (I'm no medical herbalist. But given that I recently saw documentation for
> an herbal recipe entered in a competition that claimed that all medieval
> herb uses were ineffective AND dangerous, it's interesting to see the
> scientific testing information.)

Someone else said: 
> ALL is a pretty strong word.  To make such a sweeping statement about
> something from another time of which we know so little is arrogance couched
> in ignorance.  Specific recipies often did contain dangerous substances, the
> doctrine of Signatures is questionable as far as effacy goes.  however, one
> cannot not dismiss everythig out of hand.  Contrary to popular belief (I
> believe) we are no more intelligent nor evolved than the midevielle person. 
> There knowledge and wisdom was far reaching.

That was sort of my point.  There are a number of medieval medical
recipes-- and food recipes for that matter (_I_ would not put rue in food,
except as a special case)-- that are dangerous. For instance, I would
recommend not using any of the Cosmetic recipes from the _Elixirs of
Nostradamus_. However, some others are completely harmless. 

One of the problems is that the Doctrine of Signatures, the humoral
theories, and the astrological medicine of the middle ages were in fact
Grand Unifying Theories that people overlaid over a corpus of
recommendations from their own traditions and experiences, some of which
was effective and safe, and some of which was not. The Grand Unifying
Theories led to the addition of materials that weren't effective to the
pharmacopeia-- so did alchemy and early chemistry-- but not everything
that is in medieval and Renaissance herbals is a result of those theories.
Some of it worked; some didn't. The history of medicine is far more
checkered than we are taught in school. 

(Medical historians are beginning to believe that the takeover of
obstetrics by the medical profession in the 1700s and 1800s may have
actually increased the mother and child mortality rates through increased
pueperal fever and misuse of forceps, for instance. But in the late 1800s
and early 1900s, assistance of a doctor was usually safer than a midwife,
because midwifery had declined drastically.)

I, personally, am not much into herbal medicine as I've said before.
(Though one of my closest friends, behind my back, apparently went around
worrying that I might be taking all this medieval medicine too
seriously--- and this from a woman who won't eat non-kosher beef for fear
of Mad Cow Disease!) 

I use herbs for a variety of reasons, and I take into account
what their medical properties are supposed to be when I make herbal
preparations; I take into account aromatherapy theory, too, when I make
scent preparations, but that doesn't make me an aromatherapist. ;)
And I check the safety of everything I use before I use it, and I strongly
urge everyone else to do the same. 

When I first started playing with herbs 20 years ago, it was fashionable
for the medical establishment to dismiss every herbal medicine as
ineffective, and as a result a lot of dangerous things were said and done.
Nowadays, there is far more reliable, scientifically tested information
out there on the properties-- both dangerous and effective-- of herbs. I
think the Commission E findings (on which the PDR for Herbal Medicines and
several other works are based) are probably a better source for safety
data than books like _Tyler's Honest Herbal_ which tend to oversimply and
dismiss issues.

"What's strong enough to help is also strong enough to hurt," as the
saying goes.

Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, mka Jennifer Heise	      jenne at tulgey.browser.net
disclaimer: i speak for no-one and no-one speaks for me.
	"You wake up to realize your only friend... has never been 
         yourself or anyone who cared in the end..." -- Jewel Kilcher

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