HERB - Wormwood

Rauthulfr mwolfe at nwlink.com
Sat Mar 25 10:17:43 PST 2000


Greetings from Rauthulfr;
I suspect that you will find that most of your sources also use tansy, 
pennyroyal, black hellebore and numerous other very powerful 
plants.  Artemisia absinthium is a member of a group of about 200 
species.  A. absinthium is the "official" or recognized medicinal member of 
the family.  It will probably be difficult to find useful information about 
the active qualities of the remainder of the other species. (Grieve does 
mention common wormwood A. Absinthium; Roman wormwood A. pontica, and Sea 
Wormwood, A. maritima.)

The PDR for herbal medicine has this to say:
Due to the drug's [A. absinthium] thujone content, the internal 
administration of large doses can lead to vomiting, stomach and intestinal 
cramps, headache, dizziness and disturbances of the central nervous system. 
Continuous use is not advisable.  The use of volatile oils and spirituous 
extracts from the drug for the manufacture of alcoholic drinks is forbidden 
in many countries because of possible injuries to health.

Regarding what they consider a safe clinical dose:
To prepare an infusion, pour 150ml boiling water over 1/2 teaspoonful of 
the drug, strain after 10 minutes.  A decoction is prepared by adding 1 
handful of drug to 1 liter of boiling water for 5 minutes.  To prepare a 
tea, use 1 g drug in 1 cup water.

Daily Dose:
The total daily dose is 3 to 5 g of the herb as an aqueous 
extract.  Internal dose of the infusion is 1 cup freshly prepared tea taken 
30 minutes before each meal.  The tincture dosage is 10 to 30 drops in 
sufficient water taken 3 times daily.  The liquid extract dosage is 1 to 2 
ml taken 3 times daily.

Granted, the amount of A. absinthium which would be likely to be present in 
beer would probably be much less than the amounts indicated here for a 
clinical dose, but I would suggest avoiding the use of this herb.


At 10:54 AM 3/25/00 -0600, you wrote:
>Hi!
>
>     I'm considering playing with a recipe for wormwood beer.    I have 
> heard that Artemisia Absinthium has serious narcotic properties, but that 
> other varieties do not.  Most of my sources are historical and consider 
> wormwood wholesome.  I'm considering doing it with
>common wormwood anyway as the quantities involved are small.   Comments or 
>suggestions?
>
>-Magdalena
>
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RauthulfR Meistari inn Orthstori (OL, mCE, P-eX, Et Cetera)
or, non-SCA: Michael Wolfe M. A. I. S. AB-
*Practice Random Acts of Chocolate.....

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