jcp@osiris.UUCP (Jody Patilla) (08/31/85)
I originally posted the following about two weeks ago near the beginning of the on-going arugment about holistic medicine vs. allopathy, but it never got disseminated, so I am reposting. Please note that I am not advocating any one method over another, and I want to make it clear that if you are really sick you should go to a doctor ! Putting it off can make things much worse. -------------------------------------- With all the hue and cry and hard feelings going back and forth about so-called "natural" medicine versus allopathy, it is useful to put a few things into perspective. Alot of folk medicine tradition comes to us from a time when people had no access to trained physicians and had to do the best they could on their own. My father grew up in Appalachia, in an area so remote that the circuit rider came around twice a year to baptise the babies, and the nearest medical assistance was a veterinarian in a town more than an hour away. My grandmother didn't wean any of her children until after they were two years old, because that was the best nutrition they would get. My father gathered ginseng, may apple and balsam to sell to the Chinese herb merchants. Under such circumstances, most people relied on common sense and 'simples' to see them through. A number of these home remedies are still useful to relieve discomfort and minor symptoms of colds and the like, and there is good sense behind it. Most of the herbs in the pharmacopeia have been carefully studied at this point and their active ingredients named (this info is available in any public library). We all know already, for example, how digitalis comes from foxglove, and ephedrine from the ma huang bush. While you wouldn't want to dose yourself with foxglove tea for a heart condition, you could have a cup of thyme tea, which has a muscle relaxant in it, to relieve a tension headache or stomach cramps. Thyme also has disinfectant properties, which is why thymol is used in Pears soap. Cayenne pepper sprinkled in your socks keeps your feet warm in winter (it's the active ingredient in an expensive commercial preparation sold to hunters, in fact). Powdered slippery elm bark (a demulcent) is good added to oatmeal or a milk shake to soothe an irritated stomach (tastes delicious too). Speaking of oatmeal, even dermatologists recommend Aveeno oatmeal baths for itchy skin and contact dermatitis. Home-made mouthwashes and facial vinegars are cheap and pleasant, and you can make exactly what you want. Ginger is good for a queasy stomach and mint tea works better than Rolaids with no funny additives. Now, the caveat. Note that all of the above examples are for minor conditions that I wouldn't bother a doctor with in the first place. I am NOT suggesting that you throw out that tube of Bacitracin or that bottle of aspirin. And by all means, see a doctor if you suspect that something is seriously wrong (like a stomachache accompanied by high fever, for example). But for many minor ailments, the doctor won't do much but alleviate your symptoms anyway (and it is to the everlasting relief of doctors that it is the natural tendency of people to get better in spite of what you do to them). Also keep in mind that one of the major *drawbacks* of home remedies is that they do NOT keep well and can be easily contaminated (I got a nasty case of impetigo that way once and then I *had* to go to a doctor!). Always use containers washed in boiling water and make sure that your hands and tools are very clean. Throw out what you don't use right away unless you are adding a preservative such as alcohol or sugar syrup. Always get your ingredients from reliable sources, and *don't* pick botanicals from the side of the road or any place that they may have been sprayed with pesticides. For those who are interested in more information (facts, not fadism, I promise) the best reference on herbs and their properties that I have found is "Mrs. Grieve's Herbal", in two volumes from Dover Books. There are also more botanically technical works available in the library. For an interesting source on home remedies, try "Herbal Remedies" by Dian Dincin Buchman. There exists another amazing treasure trove of information, the U.S. Dispensatory. It includes information from the US Pharmacopeia the British Pharmacopeia and the National Formulary. This stuff is *fascinating* - it has entries on things like tetracycline and zinc oxide, as well as on cinnamon, aloe, elm bark, etc. There's some really bizarre trivia: how much cinnamon oil it takes to kill a "moderately-sized" dog, that wounds with maggots heal faster because they secrete allantoin (a cell regenerative), and that bacitracin is so named for a bacillus found in the wounds of a little girl named Margaret Tracy. There are three pages on cardomom, and 20 pages on cortisone (and only 2 on cocaine). Anyone who is interested in medical history will really enjoy scanning through this book, but beware - it's 5 inches thick, and weighs at least ten pounds (I 'most got a hernia carrying it home !). -- jcpatilla "The bland leadeth the bland and they both shall fall into the kitsch."