Did anybody see this programme last night?

I was amazed at the way this guy is using all natural ingredients, widely available either in your own garden or in the wild to cure or prevent illnesses. I have just looked on the iPlayer and this appears to be his second series.

Certainly wiped the floor with the homeopaths.

I copied this bit below as it describes last nights show.


Ethnobotanist James Wong believes plants have more uses than just brightening up a flower border. They contain beneficial properties that could help ease the symptoms of minor everyday health complaints.

James focuses on petals, turning chamomile into a luxurious bath milk and honeysuckle and jasmine into soothing jellies for sore throats. Members of the public are impressed by his ear drops made from mullein flowers, while James puts his money where his mouth is and bravely tries out his own rose petal leg waxing treatment. He shows us how to make a chamomile seat and sniffs out the most fragrant rose varieties.

His recipes are simple to follow and cheap to make, and might just soothe your symptoms if you're in need of help.

Sounds very interesting summer.I missed the show.

I have often thought that many of our plants could have a higher purpose than just looking pretty.

If you think about it, most chemicals come from natural resources.

Look at what can be made out of the nectar of a poppy for example, from opium to codeine :)

Exactly fwenchie...maybe we haven't quite tapped the treasures a lot of our plants may have.

I remember years ago my mum saying she had been told that there was a cure for all ills in plants, Another one is nettle stings - there's always a dock leaf nearby. Fascinating.

Dock leaves never work on me. :lol:

I don't even know what those are so I'm screwed anyway! :lol:

Laughing man

Do you think peeing on a nettle sting will work like its supposed to with jelly fish stings. :blink:

No, but licking yourself might. Buggered if you've been stung on the elbow though!

:D

Easy for a man to find out, not so much a woman :lol:

If you're stung by a jelly fish you are meant to piss on it, the sting, not the jelly fish B)

Laughing man

I'd crap on a jelly-fish if it stung me! re**lgru**ps

Laughing man Laughing man Laughing man

Laughing man

Found this. :D


Undisputedly, the history of herbology is inextricably intertwined with that of modern medicine. Many drugs listed as conventional medications were originally derived from plants. Salicylic acid, a precursor of aspirin, was originally derived from white willow bark and the meadowsweet plant. Cinchona bark is the source of malaria-fighting quinine. Vincristine, used to treat certain types of cancer, comes from periwinkle. The opium poppy yields morphine, codeine, and paregoric, a treatment for diarrhea Laudanum, a tincture of the opium poppy, was the favored tranquilizer in Victorian times. Even today, morphine-the most important alkaloid of the opium poppy-remains the standard against which new synthetic pain relieves is measured.

Source.

http://www.herbpalace.com/alternative-medi...l-medicine.html

The study of herbal medicine is something of a passion of mine as some of you may be aware from a post I made a while ago on a certain other forum.

Don't panic Laughing man I'm not about to replicate it!

The use of plants for curative purposes is as old as time, it used to be believed that the form of the plants gave a clue as to what it could be used as a remedy for.

For Eg. Lungwort http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=h...%26tbs%3Disch:1 (no idea whether that pic will appear :blink: )
and indeed it (along with Sage, Houndstongue and Comfrey, which have similarly shaped leaves) ARE all good for pulmonary complaints.

Similarly plants with heart shaped leaves eg. Fullers thistle Mint and Motherwort were used for heart problems and plants that had a shape resembling a womb, Birthwort, Ladies Seal and Briony were used to help women keep a pregnancy full term.

And the amazing thing is that a lot of the time they were right.

Problems arise when something that is known as one thing in one area has a different common name in another area eg. Agrimony is known as Cockleburr in some places and Church Steeples in others (used to treat haemorrhoids and used as a mouthwash although hopefully not at the same time)
Consequently, particularly from the 19C onwards, a method of classification has evolved known as botanical nomenclature, which ensures that everyone is in fact talking about the same plant regardless of where they live.

Attempts to classify plants were made from much earlier than the 19C though, as early as the Greeks and the Romans, and as Latin was the scientific language of the time we have ended up with those tongue twisting classifications.

Among my prized books I have copies of Abbess Hildegard von Bingen's Physica (a translation from her 13C Latin manuscripts of the healing properties of not only plants but elements, tree's, stones, animals and metals to name but a few) and an copy of The Old English Herbarium, an Anglo-Saxon medical text dating from AD1000 which is itself a translation of a 5C Latin work.

For ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY, if anyone cares for a public consultation on any ailments I will endeavor to find out what would have been done to them in medieval days.

Sorcha

I'll give you one for starters then, Sorcha. How about migraine headaches? I'm picking random and starting at the top. If you want to start a new thread or keep it all here, it's up to you which you prefer :)