Good Herbal Health

Asia is home to most of the world’s oldest civilizations and it is only logical that it is where most human arts and sciences first emerged and flourished. One of these human endeavors is the science of herbal medicines. Indeed Asia has amazing herbal stories to tell like that of the story about Chaulmoogra. This happened in India and Burma.

In ancient times, it was recorded that the dreaded disease leprosy was cured with the fruit of the chaulmoogra tree. However, its use never became widespread, and leprosy continued taking its toll throughout the whole tropical and subtropical world. Not until 1853 did British doctors traveling in Asia learn of this ancient remedy. And for almost a century, scientists could not find the tree, even though they could buy the seeds in Burmese markets.

Finally, an expedition sent by the United States found the chaulmoogra tree in the forests of Burma. Seeds were sent to Hawaii, and the trees were cultivated. Meanwhile, scientists had extracted an oil from the seeds. This oil could be injected directly into the leper’s bloodstream. In a 14-month trial period that ended in 1921, half the leprosy patients that ended in 1921, half the leprosy patients treated with this oil in a leper hospital in  Honolulu had recovered. At last a medicine was available to cure sufferers of the disease, who, in earlier times, would have to spent their lives as miserable outcasts.

Today, the chaulmoogra trees are no longer needed. Drugs are being made that have the same effect as chaulmoogra oil.

Other Plant Remedies

Often people are not really ill. They just don’t feel well. They feel weak and have no energy. All over the world, men have sought remedies for this feeling. The Chinese found that the ginseng plant helped. The Iroquois Indians brewed a tea from sassafras bark and roots. No definitive medicinal value has been found as yet in ginseng or sassafras. But different plants said by legend or tradition to have medicinal value are being studied. These include the calamus root, or sweet flag, used by many North American Indian tribes and the white water lilies of the Ukraine. Some of these plants have been shown to affect the heart and the nervous system.

Another large group of plants has been used for digestive disorders, such as stomachaches, diarrhea, and constipation. Many of these are still widely used. Who hasn’t heard of castor oil, pressed from the seeds of the castor plant? Cascara may be found in every drugstore as a laxative. This comes from the bark of a tree found on the western coast of North America. The Indians of that region first discovered its use. Senna from the dried leaves of the cassia plant is also used as a laxative. So are the seeds of the psyllium plant. For centuries, Brazilian Indians treated dysentery, a disease of the intestines, with ipepac. This comes from the roots of a certain creeping plant. Ipepac was first used in Europe in the 1600’s. Today doctors use emetine, a chemical obtained from the same plant, in the treatment of amoebic dysentery.