tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43135875984241681572024-03-13T05:27:06.494+00:00Herbaholic's Herbal HavenThe 'new' herbal world of a self confessed Herbaholic!Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger51125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4313587598424168157.post-61707799387092899192020-07-08T02:18:00.004+01:002020-07-08T13:16:12.411+01:00Six Centuries of Rose Recipes and Remedies - Part 2<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQnyfcUWgko96f8BT1ifLdMtE6Q30cdRKp75MPoNiCXeJHRyT-npiHFR3u84IfnXnKcv4peNZHWJ97UixK7tnrxerP9UACXRi4gVLjDJBRyp1gb0xax_W3kStockDmL8WQs0z1hm_PH0a2/s812/maid-marion-rose.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Maid Marion Rose" border="0" data-original-height="619" data-original-width="812" height="488" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQnyfcUWgko96f8BT1ifLdMtE6Q30cdRKp75MPoNiCXeJHRyT-npiHFR3u84IfnXnKcv4peNZHWJ97UixK7tnrxerP9UACXRi4gVLjDJBRyp1gb0xax_W3kStockDmL8WQs0z1hm_PH0a2/w640-h488/maid-marion-rose.jpg" title="Maid Marion Rose" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Maid Marion Rose © Debs Cook<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>In part 1 of <a href="https://herbal-haven.blogspot.com/2020/07/six-centuries-of-rose-recipes-and.html" target="_blank">Six Centuries of Rose Recipes and Remedies</a> I looked at rose remedies and recipes from the 16th through to the 18th centuries, and as I said at the end of that post, today I'm looking at the 19th century through to present day 21st century recipes from two of my favourite herbalists and authors. Roses have played their part in the Middle East and Europe on a culinary and medicinal level for centuries, they originated in Persia, where an extensive rose-water trade began as long ago as the 8th century. <br /><br />The romance of the rose is illustrated in the arts where the rose has long been drawn on for inspiration. In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Juliet speaks the famous line <span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>'that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet</i></span>'. Robert Burns described his love as being '<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>like a red, red rose</i></span>', and the Greek poetess Sappho, in her 600 B.C. poem '<b>Song of the Rose</b>', referred to the rose as the '<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>grace of the earth</i></span>'. In Renaissance art, the apothecary rose was the most painted of all roses, its red colour (which is actually deep pink) was believed to represent the blood of the Christian martyrs, in honour of these martyrs the petals of the gallica roses were dried and rolled into beads, then strung into beaded chains for religious use which is how rosary beads got their name.
<br /><br /><span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><b><font size="5">19th Century Recipes</font></b></span><div><br /></div>By the 19th century roses were still used in medicinal and also in culinary recipes and they were still found in recipes for home made cosmetics and beauty preparations. Then towards the end of the 20th century, making your own cosmetics and household cleaners fell out of fashion, as manufacturers offered ways to clean your home in a flash with the minimum of effort with handy mass produced chemical concoctions. Using roses medicinally also faded from the radar temporarily, and even the perfume industry in the late 20th century stopped using real rose oil and essence in favour of the cheaper synthetic and mass produced aromas and flavourings. Even worse the rose became something to be valued as nothing more than a colourful and fragrant addition to the garden, although even the fragrance became unimportant in favour of colours and disease resistance. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimNAxdX8I8vkWLuLyEgIDa67aj7-OHAbXEPoR0g9mhRY6nU5W1zP-VteJdbJHuvwcWiTAoh503dnOrkMbEfaZXOgfGdyk8cqfHDAqs4Yu1S0xxosuz4coQ_prjp2FA0cwr5q_Xy6d7imtf/s911/rose-vinegar.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="911" data-original-width="606" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimNAxdX8I8vkWLuLyEgIDa67aj7-OHAbXEPoR0g9mhRY6nU5W1zP-VteJdbJHuvwcWiTAoh503dnOrkMbEfaZXOgfGdyk8cqfHDAqs4Yu1S0xxosuz4coQ_prjp2FA0cwr5q_Xy6d7imtf/w333-h500/rose-vinegar.jpg" width="333" /></a></div>The 19th century German physician and father of homeopathy Samuel Hahnemann in his book ‘<b>The Organon of the Healing Art</b>’, published in 1810, - which incidentally from its 2nd edition onwards became known as ‘<b>Organon of Medicine</b>’. Described how the mother of Queen Victoria, the Princess of Leiningen had ‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>restored her brother the Emperor Alexius, who suffered from faintings, by sprinkling him with rose water.</i></span>’ He also described how 16th century physician Jacob Horstius had seen great benefits from administering rose vinegar to patients suffering from syncope [fainting]. Hahnemann also believed that the rose possessed a healing power that was most beneficial to certain eye conditions and that the rose was a marvellous restorative.<br /><br />Interestingly after describing all the uses above for the rose, entries for both the 'Pale Rose' (R. centifolia) and 'Red Rose' (R. gallica), in R.C Wren’s book ‘<b>Potters Cyclopaedia of Botanical Drugs & Preparations</b>’ first published in 1907, state that the pale rose ‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>seldom, if ever, is used internally on account of its fragrancy</i></span>’ and also that the red rose was ‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>seldom used internally</i></span>’ although Wren did say that an infusion of red roses was ‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>used as a flavouring for other medicines</i></span>’.<br /><br />
<b><span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><font size="5">Unguentum Aquae Rosae (Ointment of Rose Water)</font></span></b><br /><br />
Roses continued to be a popular cosmetic and medicinal ingredient in the 19th century and most chemist and druggist shops sold rose based cosmetic preparations, syrups, vinegars and ointments in one form or another, so by the mid-19th century pharmacists wanted to have a collection of the recipes they could refer to in their shops to make those preparations on demand. So Peter MacEwan, a well-respected pharmaceutical chemist and editor of ‘<b>The Chemist and Druggist</b>’ magazine, decided that it was time that such a publication should emerge and so ‘<b>Pharmaceutical Formulas: A Book of Useful Recipes for the Drug Trade</b>’ was presented to the pharmacists of the day. <br /><br />
First published in 1864, my 9th edition dates to 1914 and contains the recipe below which was first added to the 2nd edition of the book in 1898. The recipe was for a formula for a fragrant rose cold cream which the author states was ‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>taken to be the official representation of cold-cream, and while this preparation is ‘cold-cream’ it should be distinctly understood that the Pharmacopoeia authorities do not publish it as such, or as a standard for retail trade. Cold-cream is not a 'drug' in the sense of the sale of Food and Drugs Acts, but a toilet article, and the officialising of a preparation resembling it does not make a legal drug of it:- <br /><br />
Rose Water, Undiluted - 7 fl. ounces (200ml)<br />
White Beeswax - 1½ ounce (45g)<br />
Spermaceti - 1½ ounce (45g)<br />
Almond Oil - 9 ounce (255ml)<br />
Oil of Rose - 8 minims (0.5ml)<br /><br />
Melt together the white beeswax, spermaceti, and almond oil; pour the mixture into a warmed mortar, and add the rose-water gradually with constant trituration; add the oil of rose; continue the trituration till cold.</i></span>’<br /><br />
N.B. Personally, even if I could obtain it, I wouldn’t use spermaceti today for anything I make for obvious reasons, instead I’d substitute 1 part jojoba oil to 1 part solid coconut oil and mix both together. For this recipe you’d need 22.5g jojoba to 22.5g coconut oil.<br /><br />
<b><span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><font size="5"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1gfv8-3p23DnK74dUwJdZtmG51oVwBYt093thLU1JWr5hOyUjzr1d6ngGKVKIxAjt9ckb5-6VSVjRG29MJ6gzv-KveMM0eNWDWZKdf6w74qorECN4QswNGJSEIkA3L6Lou_S6D57wWUCa/s733/dried-rose-petals.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="733" data-original-width="550" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1gfv8-3p23DnK74dUwJdZtmG51oVwBYt093thLU1JWr5hOyUjzr1d6ngGKVKIxAjt9ckb5-6VSVjRG29MJ6gzv-KveMM0eNWDWZKdf6w74qorECN4QswNGJSEIkA3L6Lou_S6D57wWUCa/w300-h400/dried-rose-petals.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>Honey of Roses </font></span></b><br /><br />
There were plenty of rose recipes still being prepared daily in English households in the 19th century, most families had their favourites and these were handed down the family or shared with friends and neighbours. Some became popular but the original author of the recipe faded into the past, the recipe below is such a recipe. It was found in an old book that contains many rose recipes, but was simple attributed to ‘anon’. <br /><br />
‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>Take four ounces of dried Red Rose petals, the white heels cut off before they were dried, three pints of boiling water and five pounds of honey. Pour the boiling water on to the dried Rose petals and leave for six hours. Strain and add the honey. Boil to a thick consistency.</i></span>’ – Anon, 19th Century.<br /><br /><span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><b><font size="6">20th Century Recipes</font></b></span><br /><br />
Mrs C F Leyel, a 20th century contemporary of Wren’s, and founder of the Society of Herbalists, included the rose in her book ‘<b>Herbal Delights</b>’ in the ‘Natural Perfumes’ section She obviously didn’t subscribe to Wren’s notions that roses were seldom used medicinally in the 20th century, because in 1937 she wrote that ‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>To-day Roses are chiefly used to ease coughs and to comfort the heart. They help the hearing, and are useful at the beginning of hay fever.</i></span>’ Leyel echoed Culpeper on the power of the rose to aid the ‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>retentive faculty</i></span>’, she added that rose water can be used as a gargle and when <span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>‘mixed with syrup of mulberries is excellent as well as delicious, for quinsies</i></span> [a throat abcess that forms as a complication of tonsillitis]<i><span style="color: #7b1fa2;"> and sore throats</span></i>’.
<br /><br />
<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><font size="5"><b>Ice Cream of Roses</b></font></span><br /><br />
I can’t let the 20th century pass by without mentioning one of my favourite writers of herb books, from that century, I refer of course to Mrs C.F. Leyel (1880-1957) also known as Hilda Leyel, found of the Society of Herbalists. Mrs Leyel included the rose in several of her books in ‘<b>Herbal Delights</b>’ it was a ‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>Natural Perfume</i></span>’, in ‘<b>Elixirs of Life</b>’ it appeared in the tonic herbs chapter, and in ‘<b>Hearts-Ease</b>’ Hilda included it amongst the ‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>Herbs for the Heart</i></span>’. She also included recipes using the rose in ‘<b>The Gentle Art of Cookery</b>’ published in 1925, inspiring readers with its '<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>Dishes from the Arabian Nights</i></span>', '<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>The Alchemist's Cupboard</i></span>' and '<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>Flower Recipes</i></span>', the latter chapter containing a wonderful recipe for Rose Ice Cream.<br /><br />
‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>Take one pint of cream, two handfuls of fresh rose petals, yolks of two eggs, sugar. Boil a pint of cream and put into it when it boils two handfuls of fresh rose petals, and leave them for two hours, well covered. Then pass this through a sieve, and mix with the cream the well-beaten yolks of two eggs, and sugar to taste. Add a little cochineal, and put it on the fire, stirring it all the time, but do not let it boil on any account. Put it on ice</i></span>.’ <br /><br />
<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><b><font size="5"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6NRjQzCfoGD9lqE1W0TMwSdKK4nVjab1OfOg6bAQQFulBSm4T6DeA94L5Uj2AaNGv5hdhLh6C_w1vKn6X7bXIzGXFaGCY_dIfcN8qfciTDYxwWEgV5U1kVL1S46aeckOUcliQU7MXUemD/s720/rose-cream.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="606" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6NRjQzCfoGD9lqE1W0TMwSdKK4nVjab1OfOg6bAQQFulBSm4T6DeA94L5Uj2AaNGv5hdhLh6C_w1vKn6X7bXIzGXFaGCY_dIfcN8qfciTDYxwWEgV5U1kVL1S46aeckOUcliQU7MXUemD/w336-h400/rose-cream.jpg" width="336" /></a></div>Glycerine and Rosewater Hand Cream </font></b></span><br /><br />
Another of my favourite 20th century herb authors is Lesley Bremness, I first became aware of her in the early days of my herbal journey when she presented a 5 part programme for Channel 4 in the UK called ‘<b>A World of Herb</b>s’ back in 1989, after watching the programme I bought Lesley’s book ‘<b>The Complete Book of Herbs</b>’ and one of the first home made cosmetic recipes I made was this one from Lesley’s book.<br /><br />
4 Tbsp. Glycerine (60ml)<br />
1 Cup Rosewater (225ml)<br />
4 Tbsp. Cornflour (60ml)<br />
3 Drops Rose Essential Oil<br />Few drops Pink Cosmetic Colouring (if desired)<br /><br />
'<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>Gently melt the glycerine, rosewater and cornflour together and heat the mixture in a double boiler (or use a glass boil over a pan of water) until the mixture thickens. Allow to cool and then add the rose essential oil, stir the hand cream well. Pour into amber glass jars and label.</i></span>’ <br /><br />
Over the years I dispensed with the cornflour and added 125ml of coconut oil, the resulting hand cream melts in to the skin and the hand cream lasts a lot longer.<br /><br />
<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><b><font size="6">21st Century Recipes
<br /></font></b></span><br />
There are many superb herb books in the 21st century, technically both of the authors I’ve chosen are from the 20th century as their herbal careers started in that era, like mine, but both ladies continue to delight my herbal book shelf and show me things about herbs that I didn’t know, from them both I’ve learnt a lot and I cherish their books.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM5VYasf0_aR_jd0-SsNMQG4N0Gq4oOJtzzkeiJm5Le12EXm5F0h0ztOvfm1nfWV_pH0bULD02lib5KcZx6Nzp3DgSer87hCdX4FJ4PdSame3oaGQUhr1QEHJvLKCMAIsLFka7AHJdbKaC/s812/annie-mcintyre-rose.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="565" data-original-width="812" height="446" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM5VYasf0_aR_jd0-SsNMQG4N0Gq4oOJtzzkeiJm5Le12EXm5F0h0ztOvfm1nfWV_pH0bULD02lib5KcZx6Nzp3DgSer87hCdX4FJ4PdSame3oaGQUhr1QEHJvLKCMAIsLFka7AHJdbKaC/w640-h446/annie-mcintyre-rose.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Herbalist Anne McIntyre Rose Aroma Therapy<br />© Debs Cook<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
<b><span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><font size="5">Balancing Tincture for Menopause Symptoms </font></span></b><br /><br />
Anne McIntyre is my first choice, she is a Fellow of the National Institute of Medical Herbalists (FNIMH), a Member of the Ayurvedic Practitioners' Association (MAPA), and has been practising herbal medicine for over 30 years. She is also the author of around 20 books on herbal medicine and Ayurvedic medicine, the majority of which are in my book collection. Anne has a deep appreciation for the rose as a powerful herbal healer, which became evident hearing her remedy for the blues that she gave a few years ago when I went on a herb walk she was giving, her rosy remedy involved ‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>1 sniff</i></span> [of a scented rose] <span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>3 times a day</i></span>’ now that's what I call real aroma therapy! I've had the pleasure of listening to talks given by Anne several times and worked with her when I was a trustee of the Herb Society and she became the HS President. The recipe below for a tincture to balance the hormones during the menopause comes from Anne’s 2011 book ‘<b>Drugs in Pots</b>’ and is used with her kind permission.
<br /><br />
‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>This blend supports hormonal and emotional balance. Motherwort, sage, rose and chamomile are cooling for hot flushes and are helpful to the liver. Sage promotes digestion and absorption, while rose and motherwort balance hormones and enhance mental equilibrium. <br /><br />
Ingredients:
To make 400ml (14 floz) tincture you will need: -<br /><br />
250 g (9oz) each fresh herbs or 100 g (3½oz) dried red sage leaves, motherwort, lady's mantle. Chamomile and rose petals.
500 ml (17 floz) brandy or vodka
<br /><br />
Method:<br /><br />
1) Place the herbs into a large glass jar. <br /><br />
2) Pour over brandy or vodka and screw the lid on. Leave to macerate fora minimum of 2-3 weeks, up to 6 months. <br /><br />
3) Press through a fine mesh sieve or use a wine press, squeezing as much of the liquid as possible before discarding the herb. <br /><br />
4 Label clearly and store in dark glass bottles. <br /><br />
How to Use: <br /><br />
Take 1-2 teaspoons 3 times daily in a little water. You may continue for at least 3 weeks, and up to 3 months, to benefit from the long-term benefits of the herbs.</i></span>’<br /><br />
<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><b><font size="5"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4C5y4eJDEgp2gjh2im5SIEUgTx2kXn2jj_dB1HOPRD2b5X_TvOGrNJGoQcawQiY-fBKjEv_tTaEShDHUpdO2yS2lHmAW4FK4UlLAg-VuJ5cJhttPasPPl1NN48fMFEs86TriqilBmpyQt/s982/rose-glycerite.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="982" data-original-width="606" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4C5y4eJDEgp2gjh2im5SIEUgTx2kXn2jj_dB1HOPRD2b5X_TvOGrNJGoQcawQiY-fBKjEv_tTaEShDHUpdO2yS2lHmAW4FK4UlLAg-VuJ5cJhttPasPPl1NN48fMFEs86TriqilBmpyQt/w308-h500/rose-glycerite.jpg" width="308" /></a></div>Rose Petal Glycerite</font></b></span><br /><br />
Julie Bruton-Seal is my next 21st century herbal choice, her first herbal book ‘Hedgerow Medicine’ co-written with her husband Matthew Seal was published in 2008 and reviewing her book for the Herb Society was how I became aware of Julie who is a practising medical herbalist, iridologist and natural healer, and also a Council member of the Association of Master Herbalists (AMH). <br /><br />Julie is the author of 5 herb books to date, her 4th ‘<b>The Herbalist's Bible: John Parkinson's Lost Classic Rediscovered</b>’ was released in 2014 and I had the pleasure of proof reading some of the book for Julie and Matthew and I can highly recommend it, <a href="https://herbal-haven.blogspot.com/2014/08/book-review-herbalists-bible.html" target="_blank">I also reviewed the book for my blog</a>. In 2017 '<b>Wayside Medicine: Forgotten Plants to Make Your Own Herbal Remedies</b>' was released and like the Kitchen and Hedgerow Medicine books before them this book is a must have for the 21st century herb lover, gardener and those people like me with an interest in how we used herbs historically.<br /><br />
From Julie’s book Hedgerow Medicine, I learnt about the benefits of glycerites, which are fluid extracts of herbs similar to tinctures but made with vegetable glycerine, so suitable for people that can’t take alcohol. Julie sells vegetable glycerine via her website if you have trouble obtaining it locally. <br /><br />
‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>Take fragrant rose petals and put them in a jar with a mixture of vegetable glycerine and 40% water. Put the jar on a sunny window ledge or in a warm place. Stir occasionally to keep the petals beneath the surface of the liquid. You can add more petals over the season, removing any that have turned transparent. When the last petals have lost their colour, strain off the liquid and bottle. It should have a powerful aroma of rose, and taste heavenly. <br /><br />
Uses: 1 teaspoonful as needed for sore throats or viral infections. For a 'broken heart' or grief, mix half and half with hawthorn tincture and take 1 teaspoonful several times a day. Rose glycerite is a pleasant addition to many herbal tinctures and formulae. As a face lotion for dry or delicate skin, mix half and half with water and apply daily.</i></span>’<br /><br />
Thus for now my dip into six centuries of rose recipes ends, I hope that it has inspired you to make a rose recipe of your own, I have a very good feeling this is a subject I’ll revisit in the future, look out for ‘more rose recipes’ and maybe ‘even more rose recipes’ because there are many other old recipes out there and other stories to tell, as well as looking at the aromatherapy aspects of the rose and ways we can use the rose to make kitchen medicine today.<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4313587598424168157.post-54342738953597220772020-07-07T17:39:00.004+01:002020-07-07T18:14:40.845+01:00The William Turner Garden, Morpeth, Northumberland<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWyN60z71WLXise2mcdpMlsb3he5vs7UQEl8LOCvjOxLqqD9KbEJk5KQYJZf8Up9grbT5CNm-3kDw2b74-BT3ZG1_1xGb4cv7DPqsaKnc5yAV9f6sc5UDrPJvtSyBKkJ0ICGXWK-J8gIPj/s812/william-turner-garden-01.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="William Turner Garden, 2009" border="0" data-original-height="619" data-original-width="812" height="488" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWyN60z71WLXise2mcdpMlsb3he5vs7UQEl8LOCvjOxLqqD9KbEJk5KQYJZf8Up9grbT5CNm-3kDw2b74-BT3ZG1_1xGb4cv7DPqsaKnc5yAV9f6sc5UDrPJvtSyBKkJ0ICGXWK-J8gIPj/w640-h488/william-turner-garden-01.jpg" title="William Turner Garden, 2009" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">William Turner Garden, September 2009<br />© Debs Cook<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />As I've mentioned before some of my posts have been moved over from my old blog and I'm taking the opportunity to update them with new information, e.g. garden closures where applicable, changes to the layouts, plus any additional facts I've come across since my original visit and to add more photos where possible. This post refers to a visit I made to the garden in Northumberland back in September 2009. Whilst there we also visited the Chester Walled Garden in Hexham, I never wrote about that visit and its now sadly been closed down back in 2010, so I will write a piece and add soon. <br /><br />These retro herbal journeys serve a double purpose, as the Coronavirus lockdown has 'grounded' my herbal expeditions this year with many places being closed until the virus goes away, or they are open but in a limited way and are harder to safely access, my herbal core needs a therapeutic lift and by looking back at places I've visited I can remember the days out I've taken and look forward and plan days out maybe later this year and in subsequent years.<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUPsPAsyMj0CcQvloYnKwnA6t3Kfxx4eH0IpDiPa-_L0u4IJgvgEd7NKOGwHLRdKsWMso-r59yFOPEEimbgxbcuvVSPNFgOJNSmMIVoLydKuxIVKr0AkJorlI20ICTdkZ9pbPCnkfrN_Wo/s837/william-turner-garden-04.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="837" data-original-width="516" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUPsPAsyMj0CcQvloYnKwnA6t3Kfxx4eH0IpDiPa-_L0u4IJgvgEd7NKOGwHLRdKsWMso-r59yFOPEEimbgxbcuvVSPNFgOJNSmMIVoLydKuxIVKr0AkJorlI20ICTdkZ9pbPCnkfrN_Wo/w308-h500/william-turner-garden-04.jpg" width="308" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Entry on Rosemary from<br />William Turner's A New Herball<br /></td></tr></tbody></table>The <a href="https://www.northumberland.gov.uk/Local/William-Turner-Garden.aspx" target="_blank">William Turner Garden</a> is dedicated to the Morpeth man born in 1508, he was responsible for some very pioneering work in botany and medicine, earning him the posthumous title of '<i>The Father of English Botany</i>'. Turner will be a herbalist I write more about in the future, his life has a lot of political intrigue and twists and turns to it, but he is best known for his book <a href="http://www.rarebookroom.org/Control/turher/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><span style="color: green;"><b>"A New Herball"</b></span></a>, which was originally published in three parts between 1551 and 1568 and was dedicated to Queen Elizabeth I. <br /><br />Turner's herbal provided a landmark in the history of botany and herbalism, breaking new ground in its accuracy of observation and its scientific detail. It was the first original book to be written about the botanical and medicinal aspects of plants in English, and the first to include reliable descriptions of the plants themselves and the places where they grew. <br /><br />Previous English language herbals were all translations of the original Greek texts, and the quality and accuracy of the translations varied greatly. Turner kept the translations from the Greek for the medicinal uses of the herbs he wrote about, but he also added his personal experiences from when he used or prescribed any of the plants. A New Herball contained over 300 species of plants, and those that didn't have a common English name, Turner gave them one where there had been none before. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkoqELkA7kuF8t9gLd9ieCNhjShVd63JOCDVGQrCYBGM2FQUjxhn4EWeSAMPc06I_5L-UPtheesrl0YU2sCIeotqiLA40UMedp0_x-dMB0jQdu5GCq7voB1nwrvF2BL4pAv45l5WfBwCTZ/s908/william-turner-garden-02.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="908" data-original-width="606" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkoqELkA7kuF8t9gLd9ieCNhjShVd63JOCDVGQrCYBGM2FQUjxhn4EWeSAMPc06I_5L-UPtheesrl0YU2sCIeotqiLA40UMedp0_x-dMB0jQdu5GCq7voB1nwrvF2BL4pAv45l5WfBwCTZ/w343-h512/william-turner-garden-02.jpg" width="343" /></a></div>The William Turner Garden is situated on the edge of the formal gardens in Carlisle Park in Morpeth, and consists of a 'Physick Garden', a long border that contains herbs that were first brought to the UK in the 16th century and the garden was further enhanced in 2012 when the William Turner Woodland Bank was added to it by the Morpeth Lions Club. The club planted 40 trees on the steep bank above the formal beds, many of which were species referred to in Turner's Herball, including Almond, Medlar and Quince. <br /><br />Carl Linnaeus was a friend of Turner's and named the plant family Turneraceae after him which consists of 120 species in 10 genera (as of 2020) and includes the herb Damiana (Turnera diffusa). Turner was responsible for naming several plants including Monkshood (Aconitum napellus), the Spindle Tree (Euonymous europaeus) <span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>'It may be called Englishe longe cherry tree. The female is plituous in Englande and the butchers make prickes of it</i></span>' and Yellow Loosestrife (Lysimachia vulgaris). <br /><br />What struck me as odd in 2009 and still today is that there are woodcuts and paintings of Gerard, Culpeper, and other herbal writers if the 16th century, but I have never seen a likeness of Turner, only images of pages of his herbal, given he was Dean of Wells Cathedral and rubbed shoulders with many of his peers, I find it hard to believe no likenesses exist, maybe one does and I haven't found it, I will update if I ever do! <br /><br />I had a little niggle whilst I wandered around the garden in 2009, because one of the info boards tells visitors that the physick garden is planted with herbs which were used in medicine in Turners time, it then mentions Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) and refers to its ability to control irregular heartbeats. In actual fact this property wasn't scientifically and medically recognised until 1785 long after Turner's time. Turner recommended foxglove for treating "farcye" which is I believe is a contagious horse disease which can be transmitted to humans. He recommends putting it between the horses saddle and back and calls it an excellent remedy, he wouldn't have been familiar with the use for treating heart conditions.<br /><br />Culpeper used Foxglove in ale along with Polypody (Polypodium vulgare) to cure the 'falling sickness' better known today as epilepsy, the remedy being best to treat people that had been troubled by the condition for 20 years or more. He also recommends the use of Foxglove for making an ointment for scabby heads and wounds. Robinson's New Family Herbal also lists the use of foxglove in ointment form attributing it to the Italians who used it to heal any fresh and 'green' wounds, the ointment was made from the juice of the foxglove leaves and lard and was applied to scrofulous sores with good effect.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiblCrlnDSBEppeHgnaUiZ4ctdMbGkMWE_FrAixRTnCIt8X9bO3ZOrHbEMnxnnWWzty2NxSvegk8QNDGE1sQJtGnh1OLpVuftx35JvcccZlnma1mqzqx9cvzSDPTZq56UxecbmSJjP8fr8W/s908/william-turner-garden-03.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="908" data-original-width="606" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiblCrlnDSBEppeHgnaUiZ4ctdMbGkMWE_FrAixRTnCIt8X9bO3ZOrHbEMnxnnWWzty2NxSvegk8QNDGE1sQJtGnh1OLpVuftx35JvcccZlnma1mqzqx9cvzSDPTZq56UxecbmSJjP8fr8W/w335-h500/william-turner-garden-03.jpg" width="335" /></a></div>The day we visited the weather was glorious, but because our visit took place in mid September many of the herbs had gone over, but there was still plenty of interest. Bee's and butterflies were drinking in the nectar and weaving a dizzy pattern of activity around the garden. <br /><br />As well as information boards about Turner and his life, all the herbs in the display beds had small plaques like the Sorrel one seen above. Each plaque detailed the way Turner used the herb and underneath there was information the way we still use the herb today. <br /><br />Herbs were also arranged in beds like this one "Herbs for Rheumatism and Painful Joints" which included Comfrey, Marjoram and Lily of the Valley, although Turner doesn't add much about Lily of the Valley in his herbal beyond mentioning its name, but Gerard does say that Lily of the Valley '<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>The flowers of the Valley Lily distilled with wine, and drunk the quantity of a spoonful, restoreth speech unto those that have the dumb palsy and that are fallen into the apoplexy, and is good against the gout, and comforteth the heart.</i></span>' <br /><br />The garden was first opened in 1999 and as time passed the plants did what plants do and migrated to places they weren't supposed to be, some had thrived at the expense of more delicate herbs and some that were originally part of the planting scheme had died off, so in 2019 the Friends of William Turner Group drew up a new planting scheme that would <span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>"focus on sustainability and also low maintenance with plants from the Herball chosen to reflect those needs</i></span>." The group also intend to add new species to the garden over the coming year. I am scheduling a visit in 2021 (coronavirus willing) to Northumberland this time to visit Bede's World and also the <a href="https://dilstonphysicgarden.com/" target="_blank">Dilston Physic Garden</a>, so whilst there I'll make time to revisit the William Turner Garden to see how it has evolved. <br /><br />What I will say about this small garden is if you are travelling a long way then make sure you are visiting other gardens in the area, or that you have other places to visit in Morpeth, if you do then add this pretty little garden to your itinerary but I wouldn't recommend going if that's the only place you're going to visit, because its rather small, but if you're going to visit other places in the area, make sure you stop by, Carlisle Park is free to enter and is currently being redeveloped (2020) to include more facilities including a tea room.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4313587598424168157.post-80931500174137255342020-07-02T20:56:00.007+01:002020-07-08T13:16:23.405+01:00Six Centuries of Rose Recipes and Remedies - Part 1<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3fWIA-ieGwd1sLWUTiDgpM3YPKx3X-z6rNxMV11w9jCPxgFvtGyDkIibKGsNkMRKi5Lx_SIn6mu4nkRyTp6NC5MIhVnWkvRCS6Vs5yl84tX6doyOVZ3cORT3sY2wpV5Vuey98mtOs_GSt/s812/wildeve-rose.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Rose 'Wild Eve'" border="0" data-original-height="620" data-original-width="812" height="488" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3fWIA-ieGwd1sLWUTiDgpM3YPKx3X-z6rNxMV11w9jCPxgFvtGyDkIibKGsNkMRKi5Lx_SIn6mu4nkRyTp6NC5MIhVnWkvRCS6Vs5yl84tX6doyOVZ3cORT3sY2wpV5Vuey98mtOs_GSt/w640-h488/wildeve-rose.jpg" title="Rose 'Wild Eve'" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rose 'Wild Eve' © Debs Cook<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />I have a very, very soft and fragrant spot for roses, their heady fragrance, vibrant colours and their silk or sometimes velvet like textures have captivated me since I was a young girl, but the roses have to be fragrant to for me or they are pointless, roses delight the senses with their aroma. In the garden I have many roses, less now than I used to have, and as the garden is being redesigned there is scope to add more, and you can bet that whichever ones I do plant will be fragrant.<br /><br /> The first documented medicinal use of the rose occurred in Theophrastus' ‘Historia Plantarum’ written around the 3rd century B.C. in which he described the properties of the ‘hundred-petalled rose’. By the 1st century A.D. Dioscorides included remedies in his ‘De Materia Medica’ for rose salves and preparations that could treat the eyes, ears, gums and even soothe the intestines, he also described the manufacture of ‘Rhodides’, which were small pomanders made from powdered rose petals, spikenard and myrrh which he said were ‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>worn around women’s necks instead of necklaces</i></span>’ and were primarily used to disguise the smell of body odour. Pliny the Elder also from the 1st century A.D. described 12 varieties of roses that grew in Greece, the most often quoted is his ‘Milesian Rose’ which by its description was most likely the rose we know today as Rosa gallica or the Damask Rose.<br /><br />This article on the way herbalists and cooks have used the rose over the centuries was inspired by ‘Rose Recipes from
Olden Times’ an old book written by Eleanour Sinclair-Rohde in 1939, Rohde is one of the female 20th century herbal authors that I have been researching this past few weeks for an article I will be uploading soon. As I re-read the opening to the book it struck me that a lot of what she said back in 1939 still rang true today. ‘<i><span style="color: #7b1fa2;">In the days when Roses were valued more for their fragrance, sweet flavour, and medicinal virtues than for their beauty, the petals were used in countless ways. Most folk associate flower recipes with old
vellum-bound volumes and regard the recipes therein contained as being of little more than antiquarian interest. Indeed the phrase "Rose recipes" conjures up visions of sixteenth and seventeenth century still rooms, busy housewives and attendant maids in picturesque costumes bringing in great baskets of freshly gathered Roses. It is true that many of the old recipes or "receipts" as the word was more commonly spelt are too complicated for these hurried times but many are simple and practical.</span></i>’<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvPsqrkZQ6IYNVMYvNCdvfraBB8FlpH0CM61y6aR_WhzsdDW1VLVfWye4kbE9Tt3M-QoSShC5Ua8_MoShKqyZfeXvofvtZm9oKH34vCtNQgLFWBejTI1QNypf4jsKitfuHS4OvsQZMjMvs/s574/rams-little-dodeon.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="574" data-original-width="364" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvPsqrkZQ6IYNVMYvNCdvfraBB8FlpH0CM61y6aR_WhzsdDW1VLVfWye4kbE9Tt3M-QoSShC5Ua8_MoShKqyZfeXvofvtZm9oKH34vCtNQgLFWBejTI1QNypf4jsKitfuHS4OvsQZMjMvs/w318-h500/rams-little-dodeon.jpg" width="318" /></a></div>When you think of the ways our ancestors used the rose to scent their homes in times gone by it makes you hanker for those fragrant days, well at least in part! Dried rose petals were laid among clothes and linens, the powdered petals were added to home made candles, they made rose pot-pourri and sweet bags, Ms Rohde informs us of that fact adding that ‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>rose petals figured largely in the old sweet bags used not merely for scenting linen but to hang on wing arm-chairs. ‘The mixture of dried Rose petals, mint leaves and powdered cloves recommended in ‘Rams Little Dodeon’, 1606 has a most pleasing fragrance.</i></span>’ <br /><br />Cosmetically they used roses to make soaps, face powders, perfumes, ointments, creams, vinegars, lotions and scented waters. They cooked with them, using them to make conserves, jellies, cakes, puddings, sauces to accompany both
sweet and savoury dishes, made wine with them and sweets treats such as Turkish delight. So many of those uses have disappeared in households across the UK today, as people favour buying mass produced food, cosmetics and cleaning products, but it’s simple to make your own, just look to the past and adapt those recipes for the future. <br /><br />In part one I'll begin by looking at 16th, 17th and 18th century rose uses and continue with the 19th to 21st centuries in part two. The English poet and writer Gervase Markham, born in Cotham ca 1568, Nottinghamshire wrote ‘<b>Countrey Contentments or The English Huswife</b>’ published in 1623 in which he recommended a rose based remedy to cure the ‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>frenzy</i></span>’ which he described as arising from a ‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>hot cause</i></span>’. When this occurred Markham instructed the reader to ‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>rub the browes and all his head over with oyle of Roses, Vinegar, and Populeon</i></span> [an ointment made from the buds of the Black Poplar tree (Populus nigra)].<br /><br />
<b><font size="6"><span style="color: #7b1fa2;">16th Century Recipes</span>
</font></b>
<br /><br /><span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><b><font size="5">Rose Water</font></b></span>
- Anthony Ascham a 16th curate, astrologer and botanical writer from Yorkshire, published a herbal in 1550 ‘<b>A Lyttel Herbal of the Properties of Herbs, &c. made and gathered in the year 1550</b>’, which included his recipe for making Rose Water.
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‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>Some do put rose water in a glass and they put roses with their dew thereto and they make it to boile in water, then they set it in the sune tyll it be readde and this water is beste.’ </i><span style="color: black;">Ascham also added his observation that</span><i> ‘drye roses put to the nose to smell do comforte the braine and the harte and quencheth sprites.</i></span>’ - Anthony Ascham's, 1550.
<br /><br /><span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeVrCq-DXO7VfTG9Qq2kaZtXK8LafN4YU37YDJTddNK0r_LmslOEowIPgFWQlyaEkDKWELGmUyvwahyphenhyphen0MC41rUz1oqAjlPr_Y9cHNaKtrSzasZhw0Fbxe_yfniPA6SrMV-jXE3zQ4Lz6v3/s722/sweet-briar-rose.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="722" data-original-width="550" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeVrCq-DXO7VfTG9Qq2kaZtXK8LafN4YU37YDJTddNK0r_LmslOEowIPgFWQlyaEkDKWELGmUyvwahyphenhyphen0MC41rUz1oqAjlPr_Y9cHNaKtrSzasZhw0Fbxe_yfniPA6SrMV-jXE3zQ4Lz6v3/w381-h500/sweet-briar-rose.jpg" width="381" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sweet Briar Rose<br />(Rosa rubiginosa)<br />© Debs Cook<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><b><font size="5">'To Make an Especial Sweet Powder for Sweet Bags'</font></b>
</span><br /><br />A few years after Ascham’s book was published, Sir Hugh Platt was born, Hugh grew to be a well-respected author and inventor in 16th century London, he was one of Elizabeth I courtiers an accomplished gardener who wrote about agriculture. He was also a collector of receipts for preserving fruits, distilling, cooking, housewifery, cosmetics, and the dyeing of hair. The word receipt is an old word for recipe and was often used to differentiate between a culinary and medicinal recipe.
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One of Platt’s recipe books ‘<b>Delightes for Ladies: to adorn their persons, tables, closets, and distillatories with beauties, banquets, perfumes and waters</b>’ included several delightful recipes using both fresh and dried roses. The recipe below is Platt’s version of a scented sachets which during the Middle-Ages were referred to as a ‘plague-bag’, then they were used to keep parasites and disease at bay, by Platt’s time they were being used to fragrance linen and clothing, so became more floral and ‘sweet’ in fragrance.
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‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>Take of Red and Damask Rose-leaves of each two ounces, of the purest Orris one pound, of Cloves three drams, Coriander seed one dram, Cyprus and Calamus of each halfe an ounce, Benzoin and the Storax of each three drams; beat them all save the Benzoin and the Storax and powder them by themselves, then take of Muske and Civet, of each twentie graines, mix these with a little of the foresaid powder with a warm Pestle, and so little by little you may mix it with all the rest, and so with Rose leaves dried you may put it up into your sweet Bags and so keepe them seven
yeares.</i></span>’ - Sir Hugh Platt, 1594.
<br /><br />N.B. Platt refers to rose leaves in this recipe, the recipe was in actual fact calling for rose petals. Often in old books and manuscripts up until the early 18th century, rose petals are referred to as leaves, this was due to the fact that the old roses popular in the receipts of the day were referred to as the ‘Cabbage Rose’ or ‘Cabbage Leaved Rose’. The exception to the rule is when recipes for making tea using wild roses were documented, those teas actually used the green leaves of the wild rose in their making.
<br /><br />By the late 16th century, John Gerard included descriptions for 6 varieties of roses, concluding that the Damask Rose was the best kind to use for scent, ‘meat and medicine’. Gerard like many before him believed that the distilled water of roses was good for the ‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>strengthning of the heart, and refreshing of the spirits, and likewise for all things that require a gentle cooling</i></span>’. He also described using the rose water to flavour junket, cakes and sauces and its use to soothe the eyes ‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>It mitigateth the paine of the eies proceeding from a hot cause, bringeth sleep, which also the fresh roses themselves provoke through their sweet and pleasant smell.</i></span>’ <br /><br /><span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><b><font size="6">17th Century Recipes</font></b></span><br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_yxpWYrYUH3SzI7mswkIi2qiG5pdyrHx3ovT0XQ26KkIPITyUpFXHin9fUiL2hP5z432rd80H7s9o5xXnEM5gw57nBF-_JK8jdy1FohzYEgTFvjmHjguHokfUXiBnI_cWeSdeY7UlloBJ/s695/damask-rose.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="695" data-original-width="550" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_yxpWYrYUH3SzI7mswkIi2qiG5pdyrHx3ovT0XQ26KkIPITyUpFXHin9fUiL2hP5z432rd80H7s9o5xXnEM5gw57nBF-_JK8jdy1FohzYEgTFvjmHjguHokfUXiBnI_cWeSdeY7UlloBJ/w316-h400/damask-rose.jpg" width="316" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Damask Rose<br />(Rosa × damascena)<br />© Debs Cook<br /></td></tr></tbody></table>Herbalist Nicholas Culpeper focused mainly on red roses in his herbal, echoing Dioscorides and Pliny’s uses amongst others, ‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>Red roses..</i></span>’ said Culpeper ‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>do strengthen the heart, stomach and liver, and the retentive faculty</i></span> [memory]<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>; they mitigate the pains that arise from heat, assuage inflammations, procure rest and sleep, stay running of the reins and fluxes of the belly; the juice of them does purge and cleanse the body of choler</i></span> [bile] <span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>and phlegm.</i></span>’ <br /><br />Like Gerard before him, Culpeper believed the Damask Rose was the most aromatic rose, he described uses for a syrup made from the damask rose that was an excellent purgative that was good for ‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>purging choler</i></span>’, although I’m positive that the super charged version of his recipe with added fly agaric would not make it in to herbal remedy books of today.<div><br />
</div><div><span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><b><font size="5">King Edward VI's Perfume</font></b></span></div><br />
17th century recipes for roses included many recipes for perfuming the home, one such recipe appeared in ‘<b>The Queen's Closet Opened</b>’ which was first published in 1655 and is credited on to a W.M. who was cook to Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I. The book was a phenomenal success allegedly containing the recipes that had been enjoyed by the royal family over the years and before the dawn of the 18th century it had been reprinted 10 times. Sweet waters such as the one in the recipe below were used to perfume the air and as washing waters for the hands.<br /><br />
‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>Take twelve spoonfulls of right red rose water, the weight of six pence in fine powder of sugar, and boyl it on hot Embers and coals softly and the house will smell as though it were full of Roses, but you must burn the Sweet Cypress wood before to take away the gross ayre.</i></span>’ - W. M., 1655.<br /><br />
<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid23BgVkGGaGN9bQWxeNSIx9_WsweQnBiNz-fAdyfAgyQPQGq270p6Txd95NEjzp8MKxzYFNzaLFfu2qd9QoBUo6qG8Rw3P42wtYq0Nk0REh5nMQc3PMqI_llhgT0AuqPGGb07AptkfBop/s805/syrup-roses-jar.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Syrup of Roses Jar" border="0" data-original-height="805" data-original-width="550" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid23BgVkGGaGN9bQWxeNSIx9_WsweQnBiNz-fAdyfAgyQPQGq270p6Txd95NEjzp8MKxzYFNzaLFfu2qd9QoBUo6qG8Rw3P42wtYq0Nk0REh5nMQc3PMqI_llhgT0AuqPGGb07AptkfBop/w274-h400/syrup-roses-jar.jpg" title="Syrup of Roses Jar" width="274" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Syrup jar used for Syrup of Roses, <br />England, 1670-1740. <br />
Credit: <a href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/bgm3v4j8" target="_blank">Science Museum, London</a>. <br /></td></tr></tbody></table>The Oil Commonly Called the Spirit of Roses</span><br /><br />
Another popular work of the 17th century was ‘<b>The Art of Distillation</b>’ first published in 1651 and written by John French who described himself as a Dr. of Physick, the work was published in six volumes. In volume 2 a variety of waters both medicinal and cosmetic containing rose petals were described, these included ‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>Bezeard Water</i></span>’, ‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>Dr. Stephen’s Water</i></span>’, ‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>Aqua Imperialis</i></span>’ and ‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>Dr Mathias Palsy Water</i></span>’.<br /><br />
John French was a respected English physician who practised and studied during the time that alchemy was fast becoming the credible science of chemistry. He was well known for his extensive knowledge of chemistry and was respected by scientists of the time such as the chemist and physicist Robert Boyle.<br /><br />
‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>Take of Damask, or Red Roses, being fresh, many as you please, infuse them in as much warm water as is sufficient for the space of twenty four houres; then strain, and press them, and repeat the infusion severall times with pressing, until the liquor become fully impregnated, which then must be distilled in an Alembick with a refrigerator, let the Spirit which swims on the Water be separated and the water kept for a new infusion. This kind of Spirit may be made by bruising the Roses with Salt, or laying a laye of Roses, and another of Salt, and so keeping them half a year or more, which then must be distilled in as much common water or Rose water as is sufficient.</i></span>’ John French, 1651.<br /><br />
<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><b><font size="6">18th Century Recipes</font></b></span><br /><br />Sir John Hill wrote of four types of roses the Wild or Dog Rose then known as ‘Rosa sylvestris’ now known as ‘Rosa canina’ a tea of the buds he described as being ‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>an excellent medicine for overflowings of the menses</i></span>’. Of the Damask Rose (Rosa damascena) he recommended that the flowers were turned into syrup which he credited with being ‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>an excellent purge for children</i></span>’ adding that there was ‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>not a better medicine for grown people, who are subject to be costive </i></span>[constipated]’. Of the White Rose (Rosa alba) he credited it with the same properties as the wild rose being an excellent treatment for heavy menstruation, adding that the white rose was also good against ‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>the bleeding of the piles</i></span>’. The same properties were ascribed to the Red Rose (Rosa rubra), a tincture made from this type of rose Hill believed strengthened the stomach and ‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>prevents vomitings, and is a powerful as well as a pleasant remedy against all fluxes </i></span>[dysentery].’
<br /><br />
<b><span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><font size="5">To Make Rose Drops<br /></font></span></b><br />
Eliza Smith was the author of a classic 18th century book known as ‘<b>The Compleat Housewife, or Accomplish'd Gentlewoman's Companion</b>’ which was similar in content to Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management published in the 19th century. Smith’s book, first published in 1727 contained culinary recipes, instructions for home decorating, tips on dealing with household problems like removing mildew, and it also included receipts for home remedies for treating a variety of ailments common at the time, such as smallpox. <br /><br />
Eliza was a housekeeper to some of the most fashionable and well to do families of the early 18th century, she died around 1732 but her book was reprinted 18 times after her death, and was one of the most popular domestic books of the 18th century, and is reputed to be the first English cookery book to be published in America in 1742. <br /><br />
‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>The roses and sugar must be beat separately into a very fine powder, and both sifted; to a pound of
sugar an ounce of red roses, they must be mixed together, and then wet with as much juice of Lemon as will make it into a stiff paste; set it on a slow fire in a silver porringer, and stir it well; and when it is scalding hot quite through take it off and drop in small portions on a paper; set them near the fire, the next day they will come off</i></span>’. - Eliza Smith, 1727.<br /><br />
<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><b><font size="5">Method of Scenting Snuff</font></b></span> <br /><br />
<table cellpadding="5" cellspacing="5" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTAgPk7-peb9sfCj7D9djusnssY_Zmpb05aeKZYCQylnxgWFGepqINE1Mmgw2oOb3vVKdlgyFaqzvUApWmRW4AF_yZPty4rA69jraMLPWDX6XOgNihydjIpoBuiksVaeI-sHoeFtskcKQI/s790/snuff-takers.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="790" data-original-width="550" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTAgPk7-peb9sfCj7D9djusnssY_Zmpb05aeKZYCQylnxgWFGepqINE1Mmgw2oOb3vVKdlgyFaqzvUApWmRW4AF_yZPty4rA69jraMLPWDX6XOgNihydjIpoBuiksVaeI-sHoeFtskcKQI/w279-h400/snuff-takers.jpg" width="279" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Five young women taking snuff. <br />Stipple print circa 1825.<br /> Credit: <a href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/pjf5ff5h">Wellcome Collection</a>.</td></tr></tbody></table>Roses even found their way in to recipes for fragrancing snuff, which was first made popular in the 16th century, snuff was a powdered form of tobacco that was fragranced with herbs, spices and other aromatic ingredients, the resulting mixtures were sniffed up the nose, it became popular in England after the Great Plague of London in 1665 when people believed it could purify the lungs and nose and help eradicate the airborne beasties that caused disease. <br /><br />It wasn't just men that partook in a sniff of snuff, many women indulged in the practice as you can see from the stipple print here. Later in 1761 Sir John Hill concluded nasal cancer could develop if people used snuff; he reported five cases of '<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>polyps, a swelling in the nostril adherent with the symptoms of open cancer</i></span>'<br /><br />
In 1772 an English translation of ‘<b>Le Toilette de Flore</b>’ written by Pierre-Joseph Buchoz, a French physician, lawyer and naturalist appeared in London, containing remedies and skin preparations for most ailments that the lady of the day would have relied on to keep her family well appeared under the title of ‘<b>The Toilet of Flora</b>’. Amongst the recipes were ones scented with roses which including floral snuff recipes.<br /><br />
‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>The flowers that most readily communicate their flavour to Snuff are Orange Flowers, Musk Roses, Jasmine, and Tuberoses. You must procure a box lined with dry white paper; in this strow your Snuff on the bottom about the thickness of an inch, over which place a thin layer of Flowers, then another layer of Snuff, and continue to lay your Flowers and Snuff alternately in this manner, until the box is full. After they have lain together four and twenty hours, sift your Snuff through a sieve to separate it from the Flowers, which are to be thrown away, and fresh ones applied in their room in the former method. Continue to do this till the Snuff is sufficiently scented; then put it into a canister, which keep close stopped.</i></span>’- Pierre-Joseph Buchoz, 1771.<br /><br />The recipes above represented a tiny fraction of the ones that are contained in old medical texts and reciept books, I may revisit the rose recipes from the 16th to 18th centuries in the future, part 2 of this article will follow soon and will look at 19th and 20th century rose recipes, and will conclude with a look at the modern way roses are used in the 21st century.<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4313587598424168157.post-82436662805335224342020-07-02T04:58:00.005+01:002020-07-02T13:13:25.384+01:00Rosemary's Latin Name Has Changed!<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfGmsL2mWWDBFS4hTkS489Rpxjce2Dl2I5bvvXvy6PKL9bDC1TT3lOBNdNk74YGe6NVxjdIRcClW_RH-ESXP-VISgSWlMJMEXcs0Pj3bZAX7Y6F11mcCcdJ4jh69mW5keTHB6r9gKrxt4Q/s812/rosemary-is-now-a-salvia.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus)" border="0" data-original-height="619" data-original-width="812" height="488" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfGmsL2mWWDBFS4hTkS489Rpxjce2Dl2I5bvvXvy6PKL9bDC1TT3lOBNdNk74YGe6NVxjdIRcClW_RH-ESXP-VISgSWlMJMEXcs0Pj3bZAX7Y6F11mcCcdJ4jh69mW5keTHB6r9gKrxt4Q/w640-h488/rosemary-is-now-a-salvia.jpg" title="Rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus)" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus syn. Rosmarinus officinalis)<br />© Debs Cook<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />As some of you know I've been on a bit of a herbal sabbatical, so this little snippet of news escaped me until yesterday, I'm sharing it in the event that it may have escaped others as well. Rosemary has been known by the Latin name of Rosmarinus officinalis since Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus published his '<b>Species Plantarum</b>' in 1753, which is when the international system of naming plants established by Linnaeus began. Back then Sage was in the genus Salvia and Rosemary was in the genus Rosmarinus because both plants were deemed to belong to two different genera.<br /><br />However back in 2017 rosemary was sent off to the plant version of Ancestry DNA and after ananlysis it turned out like with humans that rosemary wasn't part of one family but another, so the members of the RHS Nomenclature and Taxonomy Advisory Group got together and in 2019 they agreed to absorb all the plants in the Rosmarinus genus into the genus Salvia. The group decided that the differences between sage and rosemary weren't sufficient to make them distinctly different, so from now on Rosemary will be known by the Latin name of 'Salvia rosmarinus'! <br /><br />There's an old joke that I first heard in the 90's about botanists getting bored when it rains so they decide to rename a plant or mess with the genus information to relieve the boredom, did they do that this time? Apparently not, according to Country Life magazine "<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>...the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and many other of the world’s leading plant authorities, agree with the RHS’s view of Rosmarinus, having been convinced by molecular studies that place it in an enlarged and diverse, but genetically coherent genus Salvia. This does not mean that rosemary ‘is not a separate species of plant’, let alone one and the same as culinary sage (Salvia officinalis). Its revised status as a new Salvia species, far from diminishing ‘rosemary’, only heightens its importance.</i></span>"<br /><br />The two herbs have always been members of the Lamiaceae plant family along with Basil, Mint, Marjoram, Lavender, Hyssop and Thyme and many other herbs, and the new Latin name change doesn't change that fact. DNA studies showed that rosemary belonged with the salvia's and not a genus in its own right, once that fact presented itself the scientists were left with 3 choices: -<br /><br />
<b>1)</b> Do nothing and ignore the differences, they could, but it wouldn't help with further study.<br /><br />
<b>2)</b> They could continue to recognise rosemary as a genus on its own, but that would mean changing the names of more than 700 species of Salvia.<br /><br />
<b>3) </b>The third option, and the one they decided to go with, is to absorb rosemary into the Salvia's as a subgenus. This third choice resulted in only 15 name changes, a lot less than 700 if they'd continued to recognise Rosemary as having its own genus. As well as Rosemary's Latin name change, Russian Sage formerly Perovskia atriplicifoli has also been absorbed into the salvia genus and will from 2019 onwards be known as Salvia yangii, a tad annoying for me as I've only recently mastered Russian Sage's old Latin name lol!<br /><br />It will be several years until we see Rosemary appear in garden centres and herb nurseries with its new Latin name, plant labels are made and purchased in batches, so garden centres will want to use the old labels up first. I think it will also take a while for the herbal community to unlearn the Latin name we've always known it as. I know I will find it will need some getting used to, and of course even though it will now be incorrect you can still call it by its old Latin name, but henceforth the correct name for the herb is Rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus syn, Rosmarinus officinalis), we should count our blessings that at least they left the common name alone!<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4313587598424168157.post-91885399206996704502020-06-23T15:18:00.002+01:002020-06-23T15:18:42.619+01:00Natural and Effective Herbal Bug Repellents<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNdV0Vk2oBGjFXg-MgYYsKiwrl3bJOd_JfAVjj_9wYXROdO3Crc9U_qMU55hQQ_3Q3HeLJuucX4xkMZvwnB8g4-8vvMbJeA34zldMrzvxxXhtEsiFz8qL_nCjJgSjf5rl9vcxxG-6B6bff/s812/hartington-walk-2020.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Hartington, Derbyshire" border="0" data-original-height="401" data-original-width="812" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNdV0Vk2oBGjFXg-MgYYsKiwrl3bJOd_JfAVjj_9wYXROdO3Crc9U_qMU55hQQ_3Q3HeLJuucX4xkMZvwnB8g4-8vvMbJeA34zldMrzvxxXhtEsiFz8qL_nCjJgSjf5rl9vcxxG-6B6bff/w640-h316/hartington-walk-2020.jpg" title="Hartington, Derbyshire" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hartington, Derbyshire © Debs Cook<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />Out with Simon yesterday for a lovely walk along the Hartington stretch of the Tissington Trail, and we hadn't gone very far when Simon started swatting and flaying his arms about trying to deter some flying beastie from eating him. Luckily I was carrying some of my trusty home made Bug Busting Spray (recipe at end of this post) with me. Its one of those things I always carry in my bag in the warmer months of the year. A couple of squirts of the spray and he was no longer worried about the flying beasts that were troubling him moments before, after he'd been sprayed, you could visibly see the beasties flying away to avoid him, and he declared I '<i>rocked</i>' lol! <br /><br />Not everyone knows how to make their own bug busting spray, so they reach for sprays that contain things like DDT or other chemical nasties. All that you need is a few bottles of essential oils in your bug busting armoury and a carrier to ensure you get the irritating beasties to buzz off and leave you alone, so you can get on with enjoying the your summer walks, picnics or just sitting in the garden with a good book and a G&T!<br /><br />
Long before the advent of using man-made chemicals like DDT (dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane) which was first synthesised in the late 19th century, to eradicate bugs, man was using plant based products to deter them, we have plants that have natural chemicals in them which can be used to get rid of pests: -<br /><br />
<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><font size="3"><b>Pyrethrum</b></font></span> derived from the Dalmatian chrysanthemum (Tanacetum cinerariifolium) which contains a series of constituents called pyrethrins that attack the nervous systems of all insects, and inhibit female mosquitoes from biting. <br /><br />
<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><b>Derris</b></span> there are several plants in the Derris family that contain a compound called rotenone including the Tuba Root (Derris elliptica), and other roots from members of the derris family. Rotenone is a powerful broad-spectrum insecticide and fish poison, however the use of derris as an insecticide was banned by the EU back in 2010 due to its potential neurotoxicity. <br /><br />
<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><b>Quassia</b></span> comes from a small evergreen tropical shrub known as Bitter Ash (Quassia amara) it is another plant that was utilised for its insecticidal properties having been particularly effective dealing with aphids and the Colorado potato beetle, the plant contains the compounds quassin and neoquassin which both have insecticidal properties.
<br /><br /><span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><b>Tobacco</b></span> (Nicotiana tabacum) was used to provide the compound nicotine to make an insecticide until the late 20th century, at the end of WWII around 2,500 tons of nicotine were being used on crops to eradicate pests, but the use declined in the late 20th century due to the discovery that the effects of nicotine on on humans and livestock were poisonous.
<br /><br />The four plants above being now know to contain toxic components that were shown to be do more harm than good, not only to the environment but to our health as well, have been replaced by more environmentally friendly products in more recent history. If you’re a gardener you may be interested in my article on <a href="https://herbal-haven.blogspot.com/2012/06/herbal-first-aid-for-garden.html" target="_blank">Herbal First Aid for the Garden</a> which looks at using herbs to eradicate pests and diseases in the garden, many of those same herbs can be used to help protect us.
<br /><br />Over the past 10 years research has been carried out on the ability of using ‘<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3401688/" target="_blank">plant extracts as potential mosquito larvicides</a>’. The plants being tested include to eradicate mosquito larvae include:- Ashwaghanda, Eucalyptus, Holy Basil, Moringa, Orange, Pepper and Turmeric. In 2011 researchers in Thailand looked at the ‘<a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22299433/" target="_blank">Efficacy of herbal Essential Oils as Insecticide</a>’, focusing on Sweet Basil, Citronella, Clove, Eucalyptus, Lemongrass, Orange and Ylang-Ylang essential oils, as a means of using their insecticidal properties to control three different types of insects, the Anopheles dirus, the bug species which plays a major role in malaria transmission. Culex quinquefasciatus aka the Southern House Mosquito and Aedes aegypti aka the Yellow Fever Mosquito, of the oils studied, the study concluded that lemongrass oil had the most potential “<a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22299433/" target="_blank">to be used as an insecticide against 3 species of mosquitoes</a>”.
<br /><br />Wild Bergamot is among two Monarda plants that are being studied to act as a mosquito repellents, especially on the Yellow Fever Mosquito, a study conducted by the Department of Pharmacognosy, at the University of Mississippi in 2013 concluded that: - "<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>Systematic bioassay-guided fractionation of essential oils of both Monarda species was performed to identify the active repellent compounds, and isolated pure compounds were individually tested for repellency. Of the isolated compounds, carvacrol, thymol, eugenol, and carvacrol methyl ether were found to be the repellent compounds. Active repellent compounds were also tested for larvicidal activity against 1-day-old Aedes aegypti larvae. Thymol was the best larvicide among the tested individual compounds (LD50 of 13.9 ppm).</i></span>"<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-KESgz1eOO8GcEbK4VyjkkTFGyMI6l0MuYlHemKRMlGGO0sHNoR2hVwHNexqIftlPhayYYT_8A3VpB7Fjsv0wXX3nwbN2pnHc9haM103qctAXW0ukXJ1bUy4XdMIsOprT-R9rjPFWj2x9/s812/geranium-flower.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Rose Geranium Flower" border="0" data-original-height="558" data-original-width="812" height="440" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-KESgz1eOO8GcEbK4VyjkkTFGyMI6l0MuYlHemKRMlGGO0sHNoR2hVwHNexqIftlPhayYYT_8A3VpB7Fjsv0wXX3nwbN2pnHc9haM103qctAXW0ukXJ1bUy4XdMIsOprT-R9rjPFWj2x9/w640-h440/geranium-flower.jpg" title="Rose Geranium Flower" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><font size="6"><b>Essential Oils with Bug Busting Properties</b><br /></font></span><br />
<table border="1" bordercolor="#888" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="10" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-color: rgb(136, 136, 136); border-width: 1px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="min-width: 60px; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><font size="3"><span style="font-family: "arial";"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: BatangChe; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text1;">Horse Flies</span></b></span></font></span></td><td style="min-width: 70px; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><font size="3"><span style="font-family: "arial";"> <b>Midges</b></span></font></span></td><td style="min-width: 80px; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><font size="3"><span style="font-family: "arial";"><b>Mosquitoes</b><br /></span></font></span></td><td style="min-width: 70px; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><font size="3"><span style="font-family: "arial";"><b>Ticks </b><br /></span></font></span></td></tr><tr style="line-height: 1.15;"><td style="line-height: 1.15; min-width: 70px; text-align: center;">Citronella
<br />Cedarwood<br />Eucalyptus<br />Lavender<br />Lemon<br />Lemongrass<br />
Patchouli<br />
Peppermint<br />Rose Geranium<br />Tea Tree<br />
Thyme</td><td style="min-width: 70px; text-align: center;">Citronella<br />
Eucalyptus<br />
Lavender<br />
Marjoram<br />Neem<br />
Rose Geranium<br />
Spearmint<br />
Peppermint</td><td style="min-width: 70px; text-align: center;">Basil<br />
Cinnamon<br />
Citronella<br />
Clove<br />
Eucalyptus<br />
Lavender<br />
Lemon<br />
Lemongrass<br />
Melissa (Lemon Balm)<br />
Peppermint<br />
Rosemary<br />
Rose Geranium<br />
Thyme
<br /></td><td style="min-width: 70px; text-align: center;">Citronella<br />
Eucalyptus<br />
Grapefruit<br />
Juniper Berry<br />
Lavender<br />
Marjoram<br />
Peppermint<br />
Rose Geranium<br />
Thyme
</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><b><span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><font size="6">Five of the Best Essential Oils that Naturally Repel Bugs
</font></span></b><br /><br />Scanning across the lists there are five oils common to eradicate all pests, these being Citronella, Eucalyptus, Geranium, Lavender and Peppermint oils, so having those 5 oils in your bug busting armoury will enable you to reduce the number of flying beasties that can make summer a misery.
<br /><br />1. <span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><b>Citronella</b></span> – This oil is one of the most popular oils for keeping mosquitoes at bay because it has brilliant insect repelling properties, it contains citronellol, citral, citronellal, geraniol, nerol and the terpene ketone borneol which all add to the insect repelling properties of the oil. The geraniol in particular is a most effective plant-based mosquito repellent and is found in other oils including bergamot, jasmine, lemon, mandarin, melissa and rose. Oils like lemongrass and melissa can be used as a substitute if you don’t have any citronella oil, you can add citronella oil to candles and vaporisers’ outdoors to keep mosquitoes at bay, as well as using the oil is sprays for the body and surroundings.
<br /><br />2. <span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><b>Eucalyptus</b></span> - Has natural insecticidal and anti-parasitic properties so can be added used in sprays to deter flying insects and pests, the oil has been studied as a repellent against the mosquito, in particular two of the constituents found in eucalyptus, namely p-menthane-3,8-diol and eucamol and whether they are as effective as DEET, in some cases the constituents found in eucalyptus were found to be more effective. The 1996 study conducted by the Department of Medical Parasitology, at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine concluded that “<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>Repellents, applied to the legs and feet at doses chosen as used in practice, gave complete protection from biting for between 6 and 7.75 h, depending upon the formulation type, with no significant difference between PMD and deet in terms of efficacy and duration of protection.</i></span>”
<br /><br />3. <span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><b>Geranium</b></span> – The oil of geranium is a well-known tick repellent, studies have also found it to be effective at eradicating head lice, the oil contains four major constituents: - citronellol (38%), geraniol (16%), citronellyl formate (10.4%), and linalool (6.45%) which are all have natural insecticidal properties. A study on the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235670260_Insecticidal_and_Biting_Deterrent_Activity_of_Rose-scented_Geranium_Pelargonium_spp_Essential_Oils_and_Individual_Compounds_Against_Stephanitis_pyrioides_and_Aedes_aegypti" target="_blank">Insecticidal and Biting Deterrent Activity of Rose Scented Geranium Oils</a> concluded that “<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>rose-scented geranium essential oils and pure compounds from this study have shown promising results as insecticides, which warrants further research to establish them as potential biopesticides. One of the pure compounds, geranic acid, showed highest biting deterrent activity, which was statistically similar to that of DEET. Further research, through intensive in vivo bioassays, is needed to explore the possibility of using this compound as a deterrent/repellent in human protection.</i></span>” Geraniol is found in the five oils we’ve selected here and as well as being kryptonite for ticks, it’s also a very effective plant-based mosquito repellent.
<br /><br />4. <span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><b>Lavender</b></span> – This fragrant essential oil is most often associated with its ability to relax the mind and help to de-stress the body, but lavender is also a good oil for helping to banish bugs like flies, moths and mosquitoes. Ketones in lavender oil include camphor which acts as an natural repellent, and the oil has been used for its insecticidal and vermifuge use for centuries, during the medieval period water made from lavender flowers was used as a hair rinse to help prevent head lice and the herb was often scattered around the floors to prevent pests in the home such as moths, fleas and lice.
<br /><br />5.<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><b> Peppermint</b></span> - Another useful oil to have on hand is peppermint oil, it’s the arch nemesis of all the biting beasties in our table above, it’s also on the fly exclusion zone for house flies and fleas hate it, as do ants. A few years ago on a holiday in France, the cottage we were staying in was plagued with ants. I always take a basic herbal kit with me that contains a variety of herbal products which includes some essential oils and peppermint is one of those oils. I smeared the peppermint oil around the doors, windows and any other places the ants were getting in to the cottage and within an hour we saw a decrease in ant numbers, by day 3 there were NO ants getting in anywhere, and you could see them taking a wide berth to avoid the peppermint, result!
<br /><br />You can chose also to make your own special blends targeted at one specific insect using theessential oils listed in the table above, or make my Bug Busting Spray. <br /><br /><span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><font size="6"><b>Mrs Cook's Bug Busting Spray
</b></font></span><br /><br />100ml Distilled Witch Hazel, Perfumers Alcohol or Vodka
<br />10 Drops Citronella Essential Oil<br />
10 Drops Eucalyptus Essential Oil<br />
10 Drops Lemongrass Essential Oil<br />
10 Drops Lavender Essential Oil<br />
5 Drops Geranium Essential Oil<br />
5 Drops Tea Tree Essential Oil<br />120ml Glass or Plastic Spray Bottle with Cap<br /><br /><b>Method: </b>The spray is simplicity in itself to make, simply take a clean glass or plastic spray bottle large enough to hold 110ml of liquid, you can use plastic but sometimes essential oils can eat away at the plastic if left long term. Add the witch hazel to the bottle and add the essential oils to this. To use shake the spray bottle to make sure that all the essential oils are mixed in with your carrier solution and spray the bug repellent on to the skin.
<br /><br /><b>N.B.</b> I use perfumers alcohol to make my spray but this isn't so easy
to obtain, so use Distilled Witch Hazel which should be available at a local chemist or pharmacy or failing that use Vodka instead, try to get one that is 100
proof, standard 80 proof (40% alcohol) is fine. <br /><br /><span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><b>Disclaimer:</b></span> <i>Whilst every effort has been made to source the most up to date and accurate information, I cannot guarantee that remedies in my articles are effective, when in doubt, consult your GP or a qualified Medicinal Herbalist. Remember also that herbal remedies and essential oils can be dangerous under certain circumstances therefore you should always seek medical advice before self-treating with a home made remedy, especially if you are pregnant, breast feeding or suffer from any known illness which could be adversely affected by self-treatment.</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4313587598424168157.post-31105744652302822242020-06-14T23:34:00.003+01:002020-06-15T15:10:10.413+01:00Herbal Things To Do With Children<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWxhO-57lQNuACTxKXVMfVzSBG_XBqR5MuFhMqnnxBz8f_LdTd4sXkfEjckcu5vnJsVBcicF_IsTYk_BC4_64OlO20ar2t1SxuctKb0vFT9jmGfZ5pFgR0IqZqBfpPXyUvnJWe6U1cJpIA/s548/kids-n-herbs.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="548" data-original-width="540" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWxhO-57lQNuACTxKXVMfVzSBG_XBqR5MuFhMqnnxBz8f_LdTd4sXkfEjckcu5vnJsVBcicF_IsTYk_BC4_64OlO20ar2t1SxuctKb0vFT9jmGfZ5pFgR0IqZqBfpPXyUvnJWe6U1cJpIA/w394-h400/kids-n-herbs.jpg" width="394" /></a></div><p>My stepson has grown in to a fine young man, he's now married with a young family, which now makes me a Nanna, I refuse to be a Grandma that would make me old(er) lol! When they were younger my nephews and niece would come to stay occasionally (the two youngest still do) and whilst they were here, I would share my love of all things herbal with them. <br /><br />I enjoyed doing this and it seems they loved it to, after one stay several years ago my niece got taken around the school garden and she correctly identified the herb chives growing in their garden and proudly told the teacher all the things you could do with chives, including eating the flowers!<br /><br />Hearing that news made me smile in a very proud auntie way then and it still makes me smile today, she's now a teenager and will most likely have forgotten that visit but I have the photos haha! My youngest nephew on his last visit took home with him lemon balm, chocolate mint and fennel plants and he uses them regularly as he's quite the budding young chef, its been a standard to teach all three of them how to make mint tea, make parsley sauce and bake a cake of some description with herbs in the ingredients. I can now look forward to teaching my grand children the wonder of herbs and show them how to identify wild herbs and flowers and I can't wait. Whilst I'm (im)patiently waiting for this covid thing to go away so I can once again spend time with them all, thought that it would be a good idea to share my tips with others so they can help turn the children they know into budding young herbaholic's to. If anybody is interested I can recommend a couple of books and resources to help, so leave me a comment below.<br /></p>
<p>There are many ways to enhance the appreciation and understanding of herbs with children, you can engage children in a wide range of activities where they can use and explore herbs without really trying. If you're a teacher or volunteer at your local school, then you can organise school visits to herb gardens, add herbs to nature tables and involve children in class projects looking at growing herbs, their historical uses or using them in crafts, children can learn about wildlife that use herbs as a food source, create a garden to encourage beneficial insects into the area, a herbal butterfly garden can be a delight to children of all ages.</p>
<p>Local flora in your area can also be used as a resource, blackberries, elderberries, nettles and dandelions are also herbs and have had many uses historically in herbal medicine and as food. Some of them can also be used as dyes and to make clothing!</p>
<p>Aside from the child friendly herbal projects that I will be adding to this section, I plan to write a series of information sheets aimed at children that will include general information about the herb, historical information and uses and suggestions to make or do something with each herb. Whilst I work on adding all this, here is a list of ten things you can do with your child to help them explore the fascinating world of herbs.</p>
<p><b> 1. Plan, design and plant a herb garden</b>. If you don't have the space for a outdoor garden, consider growing herbs on the classroom windowsill or on a table close to a window and make a table herb garden.</p>
<p><b>2. Take a herb Survey. </b>Get your child to do a 'herb survey' of the herbs and spices in the home, once you have a list, get them to look where the herbs and spices come from and what they can be used for.</p>
<p><b>3. Go on a herb walk</b>. Most local councils offer guided herb walks of some description, not all are suitable for children, but most are. Ask in your local area and see what is on offer, then take the child on a herbal field trip.</p>
<p><b>4. Make herbal crafts. </b>Pick herb leaves and make decorated paper items, in the same way that potato prints are produced, or press herbs and use them to create decorated items. You can produce gift tags, cards and calenders using both these methods. Make herb pot pourri, herbal vinegar or grow fresh herb plants and give them as gifts.</p>
<p><b>5. Start a child's herbal or journal.</b> Let the children browse some old herb books online to give them an idea of what they look like, then ask them which herbs they'd like to include, get them to find out as much as they can about the herb in question, write a poem or story, draw the herb and learn its uses, if you have more than 1 child get them to do a herb each and share what they learn. If you're doing this with a class of children, assign each child a herb and get them to draw the herb they've been assigned and write some facts and information about the herb. When all the assignments are complete, put them all together as 'Class 2c's Herbal'.</p>
<p><b>6. Discover some old herbal uses and folklore.</b> Older children may enjoy interviewing grandparents or other elderly people and asking them if they have any stories about herbs or ways that herbs were used. <br /><br /><b>7. Compile a child friendly herb recipe book.</b> Pick a variety of favourite culinary herbs and get children to research recipes containing these herbs. If facilities allow make up some of the recipes and get the child to pick the top 10 and produce a small herbal recipe book of their favourite recipes. For younger children this can just be simple things like chives in scrambled eggs. I'll be adding recipes for making herb teas, parsley sauce, herb cakes and biscuits and other items that you can try.</p>
<p><b>8. Take an historical look at herbs.</b> Get your child to look at the way the Romans, Tudors, Elizabethans or Victorians used herbs, what did they use them for? How does it differ to the way we use them today? Maybe they can drawer these uses or think of ways the herbs could still be used today?</p>
<p><b>9. Research the way herbs were used. </b>Herbs have been used in many different ways through the ages, to dye cloth, scent the home, preserve food, used to prevent pests and diseases. Get your child to discover these uses and then experiment in the kitchen or classroom with herbal dyes, make lavender wands, tussie mussies and pot pourri. Again I'll be adding posts with information on making all these things, plus a simple salve and other items that older children can make and use.</p>
<p><b>10. Take a look at herbs as medicine.</b> How has medicine changed over the years? Did we use herbs more in history than we do now? If so what herbs were used and what remedies did our grandparents and great grandparents use? Did they really rub their chests with goose fat? What were mustard plasters? Check your local museum to see if they have any herbal medicine displays. <a href="http://oldoperatingtheatre.com/" target="_blank">The Old Herb Operating Theatre Museum & Herb Garret </a>in London covers the history of medicine and medicinal use of herbs, they also have a resource pack available to purchase.</p>
<p>That should keep you going for a while, if you have any ideas for things to include or topics you'd like to see added to the Herbal Haven Herbs for Children section then leave me a message. I look forward to watching this resource grow.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4313587598424168157.post-27070532072061129222020-06-14T09:00:00.001+01:002020-06-14T09:00:03.411+01:00Herbs Through the Ages: Elecampane<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvHfkeAP29HlVIdWBp5NsB_lBshpQWCEi_58se_1YfIGy_H_0CgOv7El7Jjv_uTrHzmEzUDvJdQ5QAitx67tT9Ca8jURZrwqtmJvMfnQpC0VMg_RBC_f4RJ8VODHfx5QZ7sTBCFag8z0gO/s812/elecampane-flowers.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Elecampane Flowers" border="0" data-original-height="516" data-original-width="812" height="406" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvHfkeAP29HlVIdWBp5NsB_lBshpQWCEi_58se_1YfIGy_H_0CgOv7El7Jjv_uTrHzmEzUDvJdQ5QAitx67tT9Ca8jURZrwqtmJvMfnQpC0VMg_RBC_f4RJ8VODHfx5QZ7sTBCFag8z0gO/w640-h406/elecampane-flowers.jpg" title="Elecampane Flowers" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Elecampane Flowers © Debs Cook<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div>I'm patiently waiting for this perennial beauty to flower in my garden and whilst I do I thought I'd write a little about its use through the ages. Elecampane (Inula helenium) is said to get the Helenium part of its name to honour Helen of Troy, the Ancient Greeks believed that it was from her tears that the first elecampane plants sprang. It is an herbaceous, perennial plant, native to central and northern Europe and north-west Asia, now found growing in North America which grows to a height of 1.5 metres. It has an erect, stout, furrowed stem, which branches near the top. The leaves are alternate, ovate, pointed, and serrated along the edges, mid-green in colour on the upper surface, the under surface is covered in a velvety coating of fine white hairs, upper leaves are veined and 15-45cm in length. The flowers are borne as terminal heads of deep yellow rayed flowers with many fine petals which look similar to sunflowers and are 5-9cm in diameter. Other names that elecampane has been referred to include: - Inula, Wild
Sunflower, Horseheal, Yellow Starwort, Scabwort, Velvet Dock, Elfdock,
Elfwort, Enule Campagne, Enula Campana, Echter Alant, Grande Aunée,
Helenio, Inule Aunée and Inule Hélénie.
</div><br />
The Greeks used elecampane root to aid digestion and considered it to have a particular affinity with the stomach, but it was also used for a variety of other uses. Dioscorides in the 1st century A.D. administered a drink to patients made from a decoction of elecampane sweetened with a little honey to help to promote urine and menstrual flow. The root he once again mixed with honey and turned it into a syrup which was used to help ease “<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>coughs, asthma, hernias, convulsions, gaseousness, and the bites of venomous creatures, being generally warming.</i></span>” Dioscorides also liked to use the leaves boiled in wine, which he then strained and applied as a fomentation to help ease sciatica, he also described how it was preserved, it was first dried “<i><span style="color: #7b1fa2;">and afterwards boiled, then steeped in cold water and put into a decoction and kept in jars for use. Pounded and taken in a drink it is good for bloody excretions.</span></i>” <br /><br />The 11th century Abbess Hildegard Von Bingen described elecampane as being warm and dry in nature, she employed the root to help ease lung complaints and to relieve migraines, she infused the root in wine and gave the infusion to her patients to drink. If wine wasn’t available she counselled that an infusion could instead be made in a hydromel (honey and water).<br /><br />Elecampane has long been valued as a healing herb for external wounds,
the Spanish conquistadors employed used elecampane to make surgical
dressings and poultices for wounds; the powerful antiseptic and
antibacterial properties of the root helped to heal putrefying wounds.
17th century herbalist Nicholas Culpeper recommended elecampane to guard
against putrefaction and as a means of helping to “<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>remove cramps or
convulsions, the pains of gout,</i></span> [and] <span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>the sciatica</i></span>”. <br /><br />
Whilst 18th century herbalist William Salmon in his book the ‘Botanologia’ published in 1710, gave a list of 22 herbal preparations that could be made from elecampane root. Salmon wrote “<i><span style="color: #7b1fa2;">From the Root of this Herb you, may make the following Preparations, viz. I. A juice. 2. An Essence. 3. A Syrup. 4. A Decoction or Infusion. 5. A Powder. 6. An Electuary 7. An Ointment. 8. A Balsam 9. A Cataplasm. 10. A Distilled Water. 11. A Spirituous Tincture. 12. An Acid Tincture. 13. An Oily Tincture. 14. A Saline Tincture. 15. A Spirit. 16. A Distilled Oil. 17. Potentiates or Powers</span></i> [A potentiate was a substance used to augment the activity of a remedy, synergistically.] <i><span style="color: #7b1fa2;">18. An Elixir. 19. A Fixed Salt. 20. Sanguis or Blood. 21. The Preserve or Conserve. 22. Enulamel or Honey of Elecampane.” Salmon described the root as being “hot and dry in the third degree</span></i>” and considered it to be a specific for “<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>old Coughs, Catarrhs, and tartarous matter obstructing the Lungs.</i></span>”
<br /><div><br /></div>
It wasn’t just humans that elecampane's wound healing properties were used, the root got one of its common names of Horse-heal due to the fact that farriers often used elecampane to heal scabs and sores on the heels of horses to help prevent them going lame, the bruised roots were mixed with hog fat to make a salve for applying to horses suffering from the scab. Decoctions and infusions of the root were added to washes for inflamed skin, and used to make poultices and fomentations, the tincture and infusions was also be added to balms and salves to help wounds to heal.<br /><br />In the 16th century John Gerard recommended using Elecampane for
treating shortness of breath, writing that “[elecampane] <span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>is good for the shortnesse of breath and an old cough, and for such as cannot breathe unlesse they hold their neckes upright</i></span>”, there was also a belief that sucking on a piece of elecampane root could protect a person from poisonous vapours and foul air. The Elizabethan’s were rather fond of candied elecampane root, it was a popular sweetmeat of the time, and the roots were also used to make teas and tisanes or lozenges for sore throats, coughs and were used to treat whooping cough. Sir John Hill in the 18th century recommended that the best way of taking elecampane
root for coughs was to take a little of the candied root and to hold it “<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>almost continually in the mouth, swallowed gently, so that it will take effect much better than by a larger dose swallowed at once</i></span>”.
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<br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUYgPU20aD0IV-tyEQeAejDqLxomY8vetYI5Ldy96ffCuZGrHWPhcT-HsZ2ZpIEumr4cyCzGnhn1pZRBdSOALRQNub8c6p4gF9fICtFhqjbJfcLNynqtUDdEEZMYHjf9acgozMVq_X-V8Y/s652/elecampane-leaf-bud.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Elecampane Leaf & Bud" border="0" data-original-height="652" data-original-width="496" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUYgPU20aD0IV-tyEQeAejDqLxomY8vetYI5Ldy96ffCuZGrHWPhcT-HsZ2ZpIEumr4cyCzGnhn1pZRBdSOALRQNub8c6p4gF9fICtFhqjbJfcLNynqtUDdEEZMYHjf9acgozMVq_X-V8Y/w304-h400/elecampane-leaf-bud.jpg" title="Elecampane Leaf & Bud" width="304" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Elecampane Leaf & Bud<br /></td></tr></tbody></table>The medical botanists of the 19th century used a tincture of elecampane as part of a wash to clean wounds and help them to heal. Throughout historical herbal texts you can find references to elecampane being used to help ease asthma and chest complaints, candied elecampane root was once sold in England as a means of treating asthmatic conditions; where it remained a popular sweetmeat in London for easing asthma and chest complaints right up to the mid-19th century. An old recipe involved pounding the root together with sugar, and boiling it up with water to which a little cochineal colouring was added, the resultant mix was then stamped out into rounds and consumed when a person suffered from coughs or asthma.
<br /><br />Elecampane root is one of the ingredients alongside wormwood that goes to make the famous French liqueur Absinthe. The root wasn’t just drunk for pleasure, a decoction was used as a gargle in the way we use mouthwash today, which was believed to strengthen the gums so that teeth that were loose would once again become ‘fast’ in the mouth and prevent the teeth from falling out. The root was chewed to help fix the teeth back into the gums, after Pliny the Elder back in the 1st century A.D. wrote that “<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>being chewed fasting, doth fasten the teeth</i></span>”, the root was also believed to help stop tooth decay and to prevent teeth from going bad and putrefying.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4313587598424168157.post-78189873529721702802020-06-13T09:00:00.002+01:002020-06-13T09:00:01.684+01:0010 Universally Useful Herbs<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU7d76_OypCyQqRTYqRrAXXAN4rPeCMfx8_mF3huj4otU3n2l1ppzcl7_AuiVdrwXJLmWpJMiap5Pv-uHj5uenQunpfvn0mlmgRcYzDx7uJqQHG7afeKZc7EwzkBhOSoBnscCbAbbJSd_6/s812/universal-herbs-lav-mint.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="549" data-original-width="812" height="432" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU7d76_OypCyQqRTYqRrAXXAN4rPeCMfx8_mF3huj4otU3n2l1ppzcl7_AuiVdrwXJLmWpJMiap5Pv-uHj5uenQunpfvn0mlmgRcYzDx7uJqQHG7afeKZc7EwzkBhOSoBnscCbAbbJSd_6/w640-h432/universal-herbs-lav-mint.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mint and Lavender two perennial favourites.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />I often get asked what herbs I would recommend for someone new to herb gardening or for someone with a small garden? Before I recommend any herbs I always ask, ‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>what do you want to do with them?</i></span>’ I get blank looks sometimes because people haven’t fully decided what they want to do with the herbs other than grow them; they may cook with them, use them in crafts or have a go at making their own beauty treatments, some may even wish to make some simple home remedies with the herbs they grow, but if they haven’t found their ‘herbal feet’, advising what they’d be best growing can be a little difficult.
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To help in this situation I developed my list of 10 ‘Multi-Purpose Herbs’ for beginners, the 10 that I wouldn't be without, and in fact couldn't be without, and the ones I feel should be the skeleton of every herb garden, the ones used to build the bones that the rest of the herb garden can grow around.
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These bones can be used for all the main areas that gardeners usually cultivate herbs, and all but two of them are perennial, they’d also fit nicely into cottage style gardens and can be added to allotment gardens to help bring in wildlife and add some seasoning to your fruit and veg!
<br /><br />Growing them will enable you to add flavour to your cooking, make simple remedies, make your own face creams and herbal gifts and use them around the home for cleaning. The bonus is they’re all relatively easy to grow and don’t need you to do that much to them once established, beyond a haircut and some division every so often.
<br /><br />Below is my guide to 10 universally useful herbs for the garden each entry includes my favourite seed and plant varieties to grow, please take in to account that I'm recommending seeds and plants available in the UK, that I have direct knowledge of from a growing and using point of view, some varieties may be available in other countries, but not all will be.
<br /><br /><h1><font size="6"><span style="color: green; text-decoration: underline;">Herbaholic's 10 Universally Useful Herbs</span></font></h1>
<span style="color: green;"><b><br />1)</b> <b>Basil</b></span> – Easy to grow and the varieties and ‘flavours’ are endless, I cook with it, make herb teas my favourite is fresh basil with added orange peel and juice, yum! I add basil to herbal bath sachets, it goes in to lots of recipes in the kitchen both sweet and savoury. Basil is really easy to grow from seed, sow in early spring on a sunny windowsill or in a greenhouse then transplant out when all signs of frost have gone. Taking care not to disturb the roots, this is the most common cause of basil casualties, they don’t like having their roots messed with. You can also sow seeds direct into the place you want the seeds to grow in late spring.<br /><br />
<b>Herbaholic's Favourite Varieties:</b> ‘Sweet Genovese’, ‘Aristotle’ & ‘Pluto’.
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<span style="color: green;"><b>2)</b> <b>Bergamot</b></span> – I use this herb for teas, the leaves go into salads, the flowers into fruit salads, dried for pot pourri and it gets added to various body pampering recipes. It’s colourful and the bees and hoverflies love it! Sow seeds on the surface of your compost and give a light covering of vermiculite, the seed grows better in a heated propagator. Bergamot loves to grow in light soil that can retain a little moisture.
<b><br /><br />Tip:</b> The flowers of bergamot will last longer if you grow the plants where they only get sun in the morning.
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<b>Herbaholic's Favourite Varieties:</b> ‘Bergamot’ aka Red Bee Balm (Monarda didyma) and ‘Wild Bee Balm’ aka Lemon Bergamot (Monarda citriodora).
<b><span style="color: green;"><br /><br />3)</span> <span style="color: green;">Chamomile</span></b> – I add it to home made sleep pillows, bath bags, make sprays to protect seedlings from damping off, and planting it near other herbs and plants can help to strengthen them. There are two types of chamomile grown commonly in herb gardens, Roman chamomile (Chamaemelum nobile) which is perennial and German chamomile (Matricaria recutia) an annual, I grow both as they have slightly different uses but for a beginner I’d recommend going with the perennial variety. That said if you want to grow chamomile for adding to teas and tisanes then grow German Chamomile as it has a slightly sweeter flavour and isn't as bitter. Grow Chamomile seeds as per Bergamot minus the heat.
<br /><br /><b>Herbaholic's Favourite Varieties:</b> ‘Flore Pleno’ (Chamaemelum nobile) a pretty double flowered variety.
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<span style="color: green;"><b>4)</b> <b>Lavender</b></span> – I’d be lost without this herb! I grow purple, pink and white varieties with a mix of scents, the bees and butterflies love lavender so much as well, nothing beats an afternoon in the garden on a Summer's day smelling the scent of this herb gently wafting upwards listening to the soft buzz of the bees gathering its nectar, bliss. I cook sweet and savoury dishes with it; I dry the flowers and use them along with the chamomile in sleep pillows and bath bags. I infused them with beeswax and other ingredients to make my own furniture polish and the flowers get added to a bath soaks for when I’ve been doing too much in the garden. Grow from seed in a heated propagator, or from cuttings taken in the autumn.
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<b>Herbaholic's Favourite Varieties:</b> ‘Hidcote’, ‘Lavender Lady’, ‘Rosea’ (pink) & ‘Ellagance Ice’ (white).
<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwCfW4cbHdW6lUe1lBgbfUa3eTWEN83nDqe9XlwuvLJgcyAGXhm27YtQmX1M3xBL8Rc4ZfhUb-SPOFNh4k9USUnA-qm6ZYq2aH4X9hSNZx66hCHg7cxIprqk0HlWbIe1gb_7b7MifZuesl/s812/universal-herbs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="10 Universal Herbs" border="0" data-original-height="593" data-original-width="812" height="468" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwCfW4cbHdW6lUe1lBgbfUa3eTWEN83nDqe9XlwuvLJgcyAGXhm27YtQmX1M3xBL8Rc4ZfhUb-SPOFNh4k9USUnA-qm6ZYq2aH4X9hSNZx66hCHg7cxIprqk0HlWbIe1gb_7b7MifZuesl/w640-h468/universal-herbs.jpg" title="10 Universal Herbs" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image © Debs Cook<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /> <b><span style="color: green;">5) Lemon Balm</span></b> – This is the herb that tells me that spring is finally here, it’s one of the first to emerge in my garden and gets used in a myriad of ways, lemon balm pesto is my favourite recipe, the leaves are full of a citronella like substance which can help deter pests, try rubbing some on your arms and head if you get bitten by midges, the infused oil can be used to make a rather beneficial salve for cold sores. Lemon balm tea is very refreshing hot or cold, I have found that warm lemon balm tea, made from fresh lemon balm to be wonderfully soothing for toothache, fresh lemon balm leaves can also be used to polish wood leaving behind their delightful fragrance. Sow seed under glass in early spring with a light covering of vermiculite; pot the seedlings on and once established plant out into the garden.
<br /><br /><b>Herbaholic's Favourite Varieties:</b> ‘All Gold’ & ‘Citronella’.<br /><br /><b><span style="color: green;">6) Marigold/Calendula</span></b> – Such a useful herb, the petals can be used as a saffron substitute, the flowers can make home remedies, be sprinkled on salads, they can be dried and used in crafts and they’re yet another herb that will bring the bees, hover flies and lacewings into your garden. I make tincture from the flower heads that I use when making my gardeners hand cream. It’s an annual herb but it will readily and easily self-seed, you can sow in modules at the beginning of spring or in late spring sow directly where you want them to grow. Slugs do love feasting on newly emerged calendula so make sure you give them some slug proofing! There are many varieties of calendula, if you want to use them in home remedies ensure that your chosen seeds are C. officinalis.
<b><br /><br />Herbaholic's Favourite Varieties:</b> ‘Orange King’ & ‘Calendula Long Flowering Mix’.<br /><br /><b><span style="color: green;">7) Mint</span></b> – You can’t beat fresh mint tea<a href="https://drellischoy.com.au/procedures/body/tummy-tuck/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;"></span></a>, it’s something I’m very fond of, my favourite mint is Chocolate Mint but that's not exactly an all-rounder, if you have the space though it's one I'd highly recommend for teas and for adding to cakes! You can use this wonderfully aromatic herb in herbal beauty products, in sachets to deter pests, in culinary recipes from dips to ice cream and planted near doors and windows it will help to keep ants at bay, it really does work! It’s easy enough to grow from seed, sow the seeds under glass, a gentle heat will help them germinate quicker. Transplant seedlings into large pots though, unless you want a garden full of mint, never plant directly into the ground or you will have a mint garden and not a herb garden!<br /><br />
<b>Herbaholic's Favourite Varieties:</b> ‘Moroccan Mint’, ‘Tashkent’ & ‘Spearmint’ (M. spicata).
<br /><br /><span style="color: green;"><b>8) Rosemary</b></span> – Is a perfect herb to add as a focal point to your herb garden or bed, its perennial and hardy down to 9.4°C (15°F). Here roasted veggies get sprinkled with freshly chopped rosemary, I make shortbread with it, I make infusions that get turned into creams and shampoos, the dried leaves go in pot pourri and scented sachets to deter moths, and I make herb vinegar that get used to clean work surfaces in the kitchen and bathroom. Don’t use the vinegar on marble surfaces, they will disintegrate due to the acid in the vinegar!
Sow rosemary in spring using a part vermiculite part seed compost mix, and give the pots some bottom heat, rosemary can very easily fall prey to damping off disease so give them a spray of chamomile infusion to help prevent this.
<b><br /><br />Herbaholic's Favourite Varieties:</b> ‘Miss Jessops Upright’ & ‘Beneden Blue’ AGM.
<br /><br /><b><span style="color: green;">9) Sage</span></b> – A terrific companion plant, when planted next to cabbages and brassicas, it can help deter cabbage white butterflies. The variegated varieties make terrific plants for tubs and baskets but for medicinal use plant purple sage, other sages will work, but for infusions and mouthwashes purple or English sage is best. Sage makes a lovely herbal rinse of dark hair, leaves scattered in hot water can be used as a facial steam. Fresh leaves can be used in the kitchen, and they make a nice addition to a foot bath to help ease tired aching feet that have been doing lots of gardening. Sow the seed in small pots with a covering of vermiculite on a sunny windowsill, once the seedlings are big enough to handle pot on or plant out where you want them to grow. Note that the variegated varieties are perennial, but will need protecting from frost or they will die!
<b><br /><br />Herbaholic's Favourite Varieties:</b> ‘Purpurascens’, ‘Tricolor’ & ‘Icterina’. <br /><br /><b><span style="color: green;">10) Thyme</span></b> – Every gardener should have more thyme, the flowers are edible, the bees love them and it has so many uses. I grow several varieties but I’d never be without common garden thyme and lemon scented, both get used an awful lot in my house. Herb butters, herbal shampoos, dried leaves go in sleep sachets and bath herb blends and they get turned into vinegar used in the same way as the rosemary vinegars. Sow seeds in mid to late spring, they are very delicate so sprinkle them lightly on the surface of your compost and do not cover, and they’ll need a little gentle heat to help them along. Once the seedlings are big enough to handle pot on or plant out.
<b><br /><br />Herbaholic's Favourite Varieties:</b> ‘Orange Scented Thyme’, ‘Doone Valley’, ‘Silver Queen’, ‘Porlock’ & ‘Common Thyme’.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4313587598424168157.post-26173737452346153232020-06-10T12:13:00.009+01:002020-07-08T13:12:42.621+01:00Old Proprietary Remedies and Curatives<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFfCRIcje59sBEGMs8HIV1ODHHFlszJ-Qlq30kBo3RoN4mkMAec7URV5FNbCMEDozRsTou3gfUsOS7xKysFEA_ojayO8gUYAnY1stm1BA03piXSAc4IKYtLqWgOtsL_Y8Xgyu9g3keXceN/s812/patented-remedies.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Old patented remedies" border="0" data-original-height="520" data-original-width="812" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFfCRIcje59sBEGMs8HIV1ODHHFlszJ-Qlq30kBo3RoN4mkMAec7URV5FNbCMEDozRsTou3gfUsOS7xKysFEA_ojayO8gUYAnY1stm1BA03piXSAc4IKYtLqWgOtsL_Y8Xgyu9g3keXceN/w640-h410/patented-remedies.jpg" title="Old patented remedies" width="640" /></a></div>A few years ago we took a trip to the Black Country Museum with my young nephew, taking in the chemist shop full of its old proprietary remedies and curatives, rows and rows of bottles of syrups, tinctures, salves, ointments and jars of herbs (more of that in another post soon!) The trip rekindled my fascination with old 19th and early-20th century remedies, so much so, I decided to take a closer look at some of the everyday remedies used by our Great Grandmothers and Grandmothers. <br /><br />The type of things that they would have been able to purchase in the local chemist and apothecary shops, what they contained and whether they were viable cures, or of little use and in future articles look at the herbs they could have used instead. I began looking at the subject of old herbal remedies several years ago when I focused on Composition Powders, so I thought it was about time that I look at more of the old remedies for blood tonics, consumption cures, diabetes, epilepsy and medicines that even claimed to cure baldness amongst other things and see what they contained, if they worked and whether anything like it still survives.<br /><br />A while back I came across the story of a Norfolk lady known as Elizabeth Freke who in the early 18th century made an inventory of all the herbal remedies that she had in her medicine chest which totalled a staggering 200+ home made medicines and tonics, all based on knowledge she had gleaned from reading Gerard's Herbal. Amongst her remeedies there was a wide variety of cordials, syrups and potions, including Elixir Salutis sold as a general health tonic which is believed to have contained senna pods, jalap root, anise and caraway seeds, and juniper berries amongst its ingredients, all macerated in alcohol, which was then strained and mixed with equal parts treacle and water. Mrs Freke’s medicine chest also contained Aqua Mirabilis, a distilled water made from spirits of herbs such as betony, lemon balm, mint and sage, and other aromatic ingredients including cardamom, cloves, cubebs, galangal, ginger and mace.<br /><br />An example of a recipe for making Aqua Mirabilis from the era can be found in ‘<a href="https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/catalog/nlm:nlmuid-101091222-bk" target="_blank">The Complete Family-Piece and Country Gentleman and Farmer's Best Guide</a>’ published in 1736 “<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>To make Aqua Mirabilis Take Cloves Mace Cinnamon Nutmegs Cardamum Cubebs Galangal and Melilot Flowers of each 2 Ounces Cowslip Flowers, Spear mint and Rosemary Flowers of each 4 Handfuls, 1 Gallon of the Juice of Celandine, a Gallon of White wine, a Gallon of Canary</i></span> [wine] <span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>and a Gallon of Brandy, let them be infused for twelve Hours and distil them off in a gentle sand heat.</i></span>” Elizabeth Freke’s medicine chest also including aromatic waters of rosemary, tinctures of lavender and nutmeg, syrup of saffron and a variety of chaffing dishes, distillation apparatus and a pestle and mortar to grind and mix together herbs, spices and resins to make her remedies.
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Back in the 18th century over 80% of medicines were derived from herbs in one form or another, and like Mrs Freke, every housewife was schooled in the basics that were required to keep her family healthy using herbs as remedies and preventatives. She used recipes that would have been passed down from her mother, and her grandmother as well as remedies that she learnt from her friends and neighbours, the basics would come from what they could grow or what they could source growing locally in fields and hedgerows, from gardens if they were lucky enough to have one, ingredients she couldn’t find would come from the local apothecary or even the local grocers shop. <br /><br />In 1769 Scottish doctor William Buchan published his book ‘<a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31822038208229&view=1up&seq=7" target="_blank">Domestic Medicine: or, A treatise on the prevention and cure of diseases, by regimen and simple medicines: with an appendix, containing a dispensatory for the use of private practitioners</a>’ which become the standard work of reference for family medicine enjoying 22 reprints. Very much like Culpeper in the 17th century Buchan’s sole aim in the 18th century was to empower the lay person to be able to look after their own health and that of their families. In the preface he wrote that his friends cautioned him that if he published the book, "<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>...it would draw on me the resentment of the whole faculty</i></span>" and that "<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>By the more selfish and narrow minded part of the Faculty, the performance was condemned; while many ... received it in a manner which at once showed their indulgence, and the falsehood of the common opinion, that all physicians wish to conceal their art...</i></span>"<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS1K5tB9FXqXis-3Gn1oI4WMIDqGlR6O4MoeC-uooW-X9al3Wv0rNAdhkiR1CWR2Qswl2mZhkl2rvrgOv5Wm_FpAidYgKIlt1SoaZn2qTJYNEjif7XxMx0zBEfKhpLZi_PLqeJXnbeJPtt/s486/beechams-pills.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Box for Beecham's pills, St Helens, England, 1859-1924." border="0" data-original-height="328" data-original-width="486" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS1K5tB9FXqXis-3Gn1oI4WMIDqGlR6O4MoeC-uooW-X9al3Wv0rNAdhkiR1CWR2Qswl2mZhkl2rvrgOv5Wm_FpAidYgKIlt1SoaZn2qTJYNEjif7XxMx0zBEfKhpLZi_PLqeJXnbeJPtt/w320-h216/beechams-pills.jpg" title="Box for Beecham's pills, St Helens, England, 1859-1924." width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "calibri", sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;">Beecham's Pills, St Helens, England, 1859-1924.<br />Credit: <a href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/z8ssmfqa" target="_blank">Science Museum</a><br /></span>
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By in the 19th century things began to change, the population boom coupled with environmental problems like the smog that resulted from the industrial revolution, and health epidemics like cholera and typhoid fever all took their toll. The 19th century housewife came less to rely on her own skills to heal her family, instead turning to the physicians and the medical profession. The number of qualified doctors in England and Wales rose from 14,415 in 1861, to 22,698 by 1901 and by 1911 free medical treatment was being given to workers who fell ill as a result of industrial accident and pollution. Families came to rely more on the doctors and less on the herbal remedies that had been part of their heritage. <br /><br />However the cost of seeing a doctor was beyond the means of most working class people, so invariably the sick of the poorer classes couldn't afford to see a doctor, so large companies stepped in offering cheap over the counter ‘<i>patent medicines</i>’ some of which contained antimony, lead and mercury which caused more harm than they cured. Some, all though not all, of these remedies were produced by an assortment of quacks and charlatan's, who offered 'secret' and ‘patented’ remedies and 'cures' for illnesses that were less herbal and more chemical in nature, and in some instances the cures were just plain dangerous. <br /><br />Our ancestors would never have known just how dangerous some of the medicines they took were as they paid for 'secret formulas' that cost pennies to manufacture believing that it was made by a doctor and would therefore help them, but most of the remedies were not very useful. The poor trusted their health to the 'man' albeit a company, who had doctor or M.D. in his title believing because it was being sold by a doctor that bogus remedy would be better equipped to cure their families ills than they were, all that changed in 1948 when the NHS started offering free health care for everyone, but as the NHS took over health and medicine stepped further and further away from herbal remedies and took the path of manufactured and synthetic drugs.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4313587598424168157.post-76948919946419773052020-06-08T19:55:00.004+01:002020-06-15T00:47:09.751+01:00Herbs for Summer Salads<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6MWp-fYbYjgCtGNb6YIKKEQFGqH79jHmJZnGn4CRClZ1xpKtXe7V0x4Xv667JoW92kIsELb91Jcr0ow0N18kjVHT8Zkk-PtuHHcIiY3tUHwihqbhH39Jlf62MYOmx6_wxCAaCelJNlAnw/s812/herbal-salad.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="597" data-original-width="812" height="470" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6MWp-fYbYjgCtGNb6YIKKEQFGqH79jHmJZnGn4CRClZ1xpKtXe7V0x4Xv667JoW92kIsELb91Jcr0ow0N18kjVHT8Zkk-PtuHHcIiY3tUHwihqbhH39Jlf62MYOmx6_wxCAaCelJNlAnw/w640-h470/herbal-salad.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Herbs for Summer Salads<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />Some of what I've written here appeared in an article I wrote for Garden News in 2012, in it I looked at some of the tasty herbs we can use to make salads to add new textures and flavours to the summer salad bowl. Salads aren't modern, they've been served up on creative cooks for centuries, in the 14th Century Richard II's head chefs documented on a scroll what turns out to be one of the first dedicated cookery books The Forme of Cury (c. 1390) and salads are included but known then as salet or sallet, based on a selection of leafy edibles and were used to accompany meat and poultry. <br /><br />In The Forme of Cury on such recipe includes Parsley, Sage, Garlic, Chives, Onions, Leeks, Borage, Mint, Cress, Fennel, Rue, Rosemary and Purslane. The Tudors liked their sallets to include flowers, dried and fresh fruit in particular lemons and oranges which they preserved and presented them studded with almonds, citrus fruits were first imported into England in the 13th century and were very expensive so they were pickled and preserved to ensure they lasted a long time. <br /><br />John Gerard's <em>Herball</em> (1597) mentions many herbs 'sallet' uses including rocket and parsley. By the late 17th century the grand <em>sallet</em> had multiple ingredients, including Borage, Capers, Cowslips, Currants, marigold, Primrose and Violets. John Evelyn's <em>Acetaria </em>(1699) was the first salad book published in the English language. Evelyn defined <em>sallet</em> as "<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><em>a particular Composition of certain Crude and fresh herbs, such as usually are, or may safely be eaten with some Acetous Juice, Oyl, Salt, &c. to give them a grateful Gust and Vehicle.</em></span>" He included roots, stalks, leaves and flower but strangely excluded fruit, although the juice and the grated rind of oranges and lemons were listed among the herbs. Evelyn's recipe for salad dressing says, "<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><em>Take of clear, and perfectly good Oyl-Olive, three Parts; of sharpest Vinegar... Limon, or Juice of Orange, one Part; and therein let steep some Slices of Horse-Radish, with a little Salt</em></span>".<br /><br />Since then the salad has been in and out of vogue, but its a dish that most of us eat in the Summer because it means we don't need to but the oven on. Did you know that most of the standard salad ingredients double up as herbs? Lettuce, cucumber, radish, celery and tomato the ‘classic’ salad base all have medicinal properties so eating salads is not only good for the waistline they can boost your health to boot. Now that Summer is finally here and salads are something that become part of the daily menu for many of us when it’s too hot to cook, its time to redress the issue and show that salads that are often thought of as boring and 'green', can actually be colourful! Ideas for leafy herbs to grow that can add colour to salads include: -<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr align="left"><td><pre><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyS4g3KtHZU-lGYoGIAa3Xg6ihzu7-8-v1Mk08NZSQzvSs99utq64x-4lo6ogHzzNL3jtqtiLfdr3175yzI7dmFnZKgypL5dqhHpdtzfCARHfyQ26VdojFEx14L3gOjJ_FuwD2AVoB9CkO/s1600/dc-salad-pot-02.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Herbs for Summer Salads" border="0" data-original-height="903" data-original-width="717" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyS4g3KtHZU-lGYoGIAa3Xg6ihzu7-8-v1Mk08NZSQzvSs99utq64x-4lo6ogHzzNL3jtqtiLfdr3175yzI7dmFnZKgypL5dqhHpdtzfCARHfyQ26VdojFEx14L3gOjJ_FuwD2AVoB9CkO/w316-h400/dc-salad-pot-02.jpg" title="Herbs for Summer Salads" width="316" /></a></pre></td></tr><tr align="center"><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A selection of salad herbs including: -<br />Red Orach, Nasturtium, Pineapple Sage<br /> and Red Shiso.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table>
<b>Red Orach</b> (Atriplex hortensis var. rubra), orach has been on the salad menu since Tudor times, the younger leaves are best in salads. <br />
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<b>Red Veined Sorrel</b> (<span class="st">Rumex sanguineus</span>) has a mild lemony-apple flavour, which isn’t too lip pursing unlike other members of the sorrel family.<br />
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<b>Red Mustard</b> (Brassica juncea 'Rubra') when I was younger it was white mustard leaf (Sinapis alba) that was grown for throwing in the salad bowl, these red leaves have the same mild yet pungent flavour.
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<b>Tree Spinach</b> (Chenopodium giganteum) eat the young leaves, older ones are great cooked like spinach. Be warned, if you let this one flower and set seed it’ll be part of the garden for a very long time to come!<br />
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To the reds you can add a selection of the following: - Salad Burnet with its delicate feathery leaves that taste mildy of cucumber, peppery Rocket, Mizuna, Nasturtium leaves and Watercress can add a peppery twist. <br /><br />Lettuce Leaf Basil is also a winner with a mild clove taste, and adding Chervil, Dill, Fennel, Sweet Cicely or Tarragon leaves to your salad bowl will add varying degrees of aniseed flavours that will go exceptionally well with chicken or fish dishes. Broad Leaf Sorrel adds a sharp and refreshing lemony twist to salads, whilst young Lemon Balm leaves give a fresh lemony zing. <br /><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjipVzzx1bPoFErpMyP-_e96Pbv5zcNOqCXrdZhXspUdxdSulCDpioyhVRBIKdyvAq-LetoC5LHR2OPnZCWBz21ADnp-OOpzv1EpNkF23q0ZzPfNvTJDeqrvJCAjbhDMcXEC-LyVU0c72NZ/s812/dc-herb-salad-mixed.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Green Salad Herbs" border="0" data-original-height="756" data-original-width="812" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjipVzzx1bPoFErpMyP-_e96Pbv5zcNOqCXrdZhXspUdxdSulCDpioyhVRBIKdyvAq-LetoC5LHR2OPnZCWBz21ADnp-OOpzv1EpNkF23q0ZzPfNvTJDeqrvJCAjbhDMcXEC-LyVU0c72NZ/w320-h298/dc-herb-salad-mixed.jpg" title="Green Salad Herbs" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Green salad herbs including Salad Burnet, <br />Rocket and Sorrel.<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: left;">
John Evelyn listed over 50 herbs for using in salads, some of which have since fallen out of favour, including Alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum) and Purslane (Portulaca oleracea) which were both very popular 17th century salad ingredients, both can be grown from seed and make interesting additions to any salad. <br /><br />
Once you have the leafy ‘bones’ of the salad, you can add smaller leaved herbs for flavour and fragrance. Many delicious combinations can be put together, be creative and experiment with combinations of herbs which enhance your main ingredients. Try to use flavours that compliment each other, too many flavours can confuse the palate. <br /><br />
Don’t forget to feed the eye as well as the palate by adding herb flowers to the salad. Sprinkle the flowers of Basil, Chives, Calendula, Mint, Nasturtium, Marjoram, Rose or Thyme to enhance the presentation of your dish as well as adding subtle flavour. <br /></div>
<br /><span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><b>More Salad Herbs</b>:</span>- Borage (the young leaves, older leaves are hairy and not so kind to the palette), Buckler Leaf Sorrel, Celery Leaf, Chicory (the leaves, root & flowers), Chives, Coriander Leaf, Corn Salad (aka Lamb's Lettuce), Endive, Good King Henry, Hyssop, Land Cress, Lovage, Marjoram, Mint, Parsley, Summer Savory (very good with bean based salads) and Welsh Onion. <br /><p>Herbs don't have to be just added to the salad as leaves, they can be chopped, juiced and pounded used to make delicious dressings to drizzle over your salad. Note that dressings should always be added just before serving a leaf based salad, especially if they contain salt and vinegar, these two elements cause the leaves to 'wilt' and look tired.</p>
<h2><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><font size="6">Basic Herb Salad</font></span></span></h2>
<p>80-100g fresh herb salad leaves such as Rocket, Watercress, Baby Spinach, Sorrel, Salad Burnet and Nasturtium leaves. Add a handful of chopped or shredded herb leaves such as basil, flat leaf parsley, coriander, chervil or marjoram. Throw in a few chive and nasturtium flowers and finish with my favourite salad dressing below.<br /></p><br /><span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><font size="6">Citrus Herb Dressing</font></span><br /><br />100ml Orange Juice <br />50ml
Lemon Juice
<br />100ml Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
<br />2 Tbsp Chopped Lemon Thyme
<br />2 Tbsp Chopped Lemon Verbena (if you can't find lemon verbena, lemon balm can be used instead).
<br />1 Clove Garlic, crushed
<br />Pinch Sugar
<br />Sea Salt & Black Pepper to taste
<br /><br /><span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><b><font size="4">Method</font></b></span> - Make the dressing a few hours in advance for the flavours to infuse, if you can make it and leave it in the fridge overnight it will taste better. Finely chop the herbs, peel and crush the garlic and juice the citrus fruit. In a bowl, combine all the dressing ingredients. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Pour over your salad just before serving.<br /><br />On a final note, there is a good choice of seasonal wild herbs that can be harvested from
the hedgerow to add to your salads such as the young leaves of
Dandelion, Chickweed, Garlic Mustard and Wild Garlic. <b>N.B. <span style="color: #b51200;">DO NOT</span></b> pick and eat any herb or plant that you are not 100% certain of, the mantra here should be "<i>If in doubt, don’t!</i>"Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4313587598424168157.post-13411150748844424552020-06-07T23:47:00.007+01:002020-06-10T01:58:06.244+01:00Soapwort: A Natural Herbal Alternative to Soap<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Soapwort (Saponaria officinalis)" border="0" data-original-height="516" data-original-width="812" height="406" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbeSIDxy2ExR7Hb4laZC3Z4AgHjTLOAfaJU6K7DmFDwRVVAGZR9YSnkHXDU5sdNGMD34j4NZppIL70zVGypFs727PGSEtzQyEFVZjQ9kkqVJ1b0herhhIZ2kSvGF550ZXnLBtmtNU8Uc0s/w640-h406/soapwort-flowers.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Soapwort Flowers" width="640" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Soapwort Flowers<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "calibri", sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: "calibri", sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></div>
When it comes to cleaning, some of us get into rather a lather over what can be used instead of chemical detergents to clean clothes and fabrics in the home. Nature and the world of herbs can help; there are a variety of herbs that have naturally occurring compounds that will generate a lather for cleaning. Soapwort with its Latin name of Saponaria officinalis is one of these herbs, which can be used as a mild detergent for fine fabrics or upholstery.
<br /><br />It is especially effective as a mild cleanser for old or antique fabrics, including rugs and tapestries and has been used to clean fabrics since the late middle-ages, the ancient Greeks and Romans are said to have used it for cleaning wool, although some believe soapworts use then was misidentified and the roots of Gypsophila (Gypsophila paniculata) better known to florists today as “Baby’s Breath” was the herb used.<br /><br />
John Gerard in his 16th century herbal wrote that soapwort ‘<span style="color: #3367d6;"><i><span style="color: #7b1fa2;">is used in baths to beautifie and cleanse the skin</span></i></span>’ whilst Nicolas Culpeper in his 17th century herbal remarked that soapwort ‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>easily washes greasy spots out of clothes</i></span>’. So gentle and effective is it, that soapwort root is still used today to clean old tapestries and textiles such as the Bayeaux Tapestry. <br /><br />
It’s been used by the National Trust on delicate fabrics and textiles since the root was famously used to restore the curtains which dated back to 1746 that hung in Uppark House in Sussex by the then owner Lady Meade-Fetherstonhaugh. Seeing that the curtains needed some TLC, she consulted her friend, Hilda Leyel who was also a well-known herbalist and author of the time for advice. Hilda was founder of the Society of herbalists, later to become the Herb Society and did much for the rights of people to be able to consult a herbalist and have access to herbal medicine.<br /><br />
Together Lady Meade-Fetherstonhaugh and Mrs Leyel investigated herbs that could be used to clean textiles and decided that soapwort best suited the job, so they used the leaves and roots of soapwort to make a natural cleaning solution. Lady Meade-Fetherstonhaugh was so impressed with the results of the soapwort cleaning solution that she remarked '<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>It is a miracle process which not only cleans but heals the material by feeding and strengthening the threads of the textile</i></span>'.
<br /><br />Lady Meade-Fetherstonhaugh believed that the soapwort worked best with spring water or what she called ‘<i><span style="color: #7b1fa2;">living water</span></i>’, I wonder if she knew that as a cleaning agent, soapwort works most efficiently if the water used is natural spring water or water with a pH of 5.7 or greater, or whether she just preferred to use natural spring water as she believed it to be purer than tap water? <br /><br />
Whatever the reason, Lady Meade-Fetherstonhaugh became an expert restorer of fabrics and textiles, the curtains she restored were hanging in strips when she arrived at the house in the 1930’s, with stitching, and cleaning with her soapwort solution they were restored to look almost like new. She also used the soapwort solution to clean and restore bed hangings on the state bed at Uppark, and two chairs covered in the same cherry red brocade fabric were also restored, one with soapwort and one without, the difference in the restoration of the one treated with soapwort was said to be an ‘<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>amazing contrast</i></span>’. <br /><br />
If you’d like to test out soapwort as a natural cleaner for yourself, here’s an easy recipe and method to try. <br /><br />
<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><font size="6"><b>Easy Soapwort Fabric Shampoo </b></font><br /><br /><b>Ingredients</b><br /></span><br />
25g Dried Soapwort Root<br />
1 Litre Water<br /><br />
Note: Always test on a small piece of fabric first or on an area that cannot be seen if the solution does not work. Consider using distilled or spring water if you live in hard water areas. Remember Lady Meade-Fetherstonhaugh believed spring water to be the best choice for the cleaning solution.
<br /><br /><span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><b>Method</b></span>
<br /><br />Crush the roots with a rolling pin and leave to soak in the water overnight, this will allow the dried root to soften and make it easier for the saponins to be released. Place the soapwort and water in an enamel pan, bring to a boil, cover and simmer 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Allow to stand until cool, then strain.
To use the soapwort shampoo on upholstery, lightly dampen a sponge or soft brush with the cooled solution, rub lightly and allow to dry, use a soft brush to bring back the ‘pile’ in the fabric. Apply again if necessary.
<br /><br />To use with fragile or delicate fabrics, allow the item to soak in cool water until thoroughly moistened, then soak in the cool Soapwort solution, then rinse again in cool fresh water.<br /><br />
Soapwort is such a good natural cleaning agent because it is rich in mucilaginous saponins which aid the plant to produce a rich lather when agitated in warm water. As well as cleaning fabric and textiles, soapwort root can also be used as a shampoo to ease a dry itchy scalp, although try to avoid getting shampoo in the eyes as it can irritate them. To make a hair shampoo, boil the root for 20 minutes to release the saponins into the water, you can use a floral/herbal water or decoction as a base to improve the ‘earthy’ aroma that soapwort root gives off, or add a few drops of your favourite essential oil. Unlike man made shampoos, soapwort shampoo does not give a rich, creamy lather, it is mild and gentle, and leaves the hair feeling soft and smooth with no need for conditioner. Another benefit of using soapwort shampoo is it can help reduce the amount of hair that falls out of the head when brushing. <br /><br />
<i><b>NB: </b>Before you try any alternatives to soap, especially if you’re using them to wash clothes, or as a shampoo make sure you do a skin test to check for possible allergic reaction to the herb.
</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4313587598424168157.post-88479876555489149572018-05-15T12:02:00.002+01:002018-05-15T12:02:13.167+01:00Herbs For Hanging Baskets<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Herbs can be grown in hanging baskets to great effect; my fool proof plan for keeping them in tip-top condition begins with a liner, I use coconut fibre liners these days, but you could use hessian sacks, old wooolies, and even empty compost bags they’re usually black on the inside, just make sure the inside faces out and prick a few holes in the plastic for drainage.<br />
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Before I add compost, I place a saucer - or in my case a shallow dish - in the base of my basket, a trick my Grandad taught me when I was first learning to garden over 40 years ago, WOW I'm getting old! Hanging baskets are notorious for drying out quickly on hot summer days, so anything you can do to help retain moisture in the basket will help. I also add water retaining crystals, I use a type called Gardman Nutrigel - Water Retaining Crystals & Plant Food, the crystals which hold water are also pre-mixed with plant food that lasts all season which feeds your baskets throughout the growing season.<br />
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Next add a good compost suitable for hanging baskets, I’ve had great success with Horizon Organic Peat Free compost in the past but it’s got harder to obtain locally, so I favour using Westland Jack’s Magic All Purpose Compost, it’s enriched with seaweed and is a multi-purpose variety. I’ve seen good results so far and the herbs seem to like it and thrive. For best results pick low growing herbs for your herbal hanging basket, tall growing herbs won’t thrive in a basket. <br />
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Plant your herbs up fresh every season, previous seasons plants can be reused, the chives in my basket are from last year’s display, I divided them and replanted in fresh compost. Keep baskets well watered and harvest regularly to keep the herbs producing new leaves and looking their best. If you don’t use slow release plant food, make sure you feed your herbs every 3 weeks or so during the growing season. I purposefully leave gaps and add seeds of herbs such as nasturtiums, basil and alpine strawberries, so new things emerge in the baskets as the season progresses.<br />
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You can plant baskets with just one variety - a basket of variegated lemon balm can add a splash of colour to a shady spot - or have themes. The basket I planted up above has a ‘Sunday Roast’ theme, chives, marjoram, oregano, sage and 2 varieties of thyme, are all ready for adding to meat and veg for roasts. You could add garden mint or an excellent flavoured prostrate rosemary like ‘Blue Lagoon’ to the mix if you like, which will hang down the sides of the basket. Different themes you can try include: - Chamomile, chocolate mint and lemon thyme for herb teas, Italian herbs for pizza and pasta, herbs for the BBQ or add calendula, lavender and thyme to an herbal first aid basket.<br />
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A few years ago I visited Yorkshire Lavender and came across a cracking idea for herbal hanging baskets using single varieties of butterfly lavenders in baskets to make aromatic balls of colour. Something I’m keen to copy this year for hanging near my new seating area. That idea led me to think about ways to showcase single varieties of herbs and I’ve hit on the idea of tying two baskets together that have been filled with compost, and I've experimenting with lawn chamomile, small leafed basil Piccolino, and tiny leaved and highly aromatic, creeping Corsican Mint to make single herb balls, much better than those artificial ‘herb’ balls that some people seem to be favouring these days, even if you do have to keep watering them!
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4313587598424168157.post-4288129492444230662018-05-13T17:39:00.009+01:002020-07-08T13:11:36.176+01:00Old Apothecary Remedy Measures<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I have a collection of 19th and 20th century books on herbs and some from the 18th century, as regular readers to my other blog will know, and through the wonders of the internet I’ve discovered examples of herb texts and manuscripts that date back to the 5th century and beyond. Sadly many of the recipes and formulas for herbal remedies that they contain, appear to be written in a foreign language that is all Greek to me lol!<br />
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For example William Bowker's 19th century "<b>Valuable Herbal Prescriptions</b>" book is filled with drachm and grain weight measurements, along with pints and ounce measurements. Other books like Peter MacEwan’s "<b>Pharmaceutical Formulas: the Chemist and Druggist’s’ Book of Useful Recipes for the Drug Trade</b>" contain the same drachm, grain and ounce measurements, as well as containing plenty of formulas that contain old apothecary measures, as can be seen from the photo below. <br /><br />
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<font size="5"><span style="color: #7b1fa2;">What Were Apothecary Weights & Measures? </span></font></h2>
<br />First we need to define what the old apothecary weights were, but before I can do that, I have to add a caveat, my examples below only apply to the UK. The old herbalists who wrote books in America employed a different set of weights and measures, so it is important that you know from where the person writing the book you’re reading comes from, and also which market the book was intended for.
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For example in the UK, 1 Pint in apothecary measurements was equal to 20 imperial fluid ounces of water, or approximately 568.26ml. In the USA a apothecary measurement of a pint was 16 fluid ounces approximately 473.18ml. So if you are reading “<b>Elixirs and Flavoring Extracts</b>” by 20th century American Eclectic Medicine practitioner John Uri Lloyd and a recipe calls for 1 pint, you’d need to work your recipe on 16 fluid ounces (473.18ml). <br />
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If the book you're referencing is by 19th century English Medical Botanist George Slack for example, and a formula calls for 1 pint of a liquid such as 'Spirits of Wine' then you'd add 20 fluid ounces (568.26ml). Unless, and this is where it starts to get complicated, the recipe in the English book is citing an American reference, if that is the case make sure you chose 1 measure and add the corresponding measures to your recipe.<br />
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For liquid measure, or liquid capacity, the basic unit was the gallon, which was divided into 4 quarts, 8 pints, or 32 gills. In the U.S. a gallon, also known as a wine gallon, is equal to 231 cubic inches (cu in.). A British imperial gallon is measured as the volume of 10lb of pure water measured when it is at the temperature of 62°F and was equal to 277.42 cubic inches (4.55 Litres approx).
As you can see British units of liquid capacity were approximately 20% bigger than the same American units. The U.S. fluid ounce being 1/16th of a U.S. pint; the British unit of the same name is 1/20th of an imperial pint.<br />
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Apothecary weights were a system of units of mass that were used by apothecaries and druggists throughout the English-speaking world before 15th, and were based on the grain weight a unit of weight equal to 0.065 gram, or 1/7,000 pound avoirdupois. The avoirdupois system abbreviated avdp. is a measurement system of weights which uses pounds and ounces as units, it was first used in the 13th century and was then updated in 1959 and is still in use today in most English speaking countries. Grain weight was one of the earliest units of common measure and also the smallest, it is a uniform unit in the avoirdupois, apothecaries’, and troy systems.and each weight had its own symbol which to the person not schooled in the system can look like hieroglyphs.<br />
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One grain = gr.<br />
On Scruple (20 grains) = ℈<br />
One Drachm (60 grains) = Ʒ<br />
One Ounce (437½ grains) = ℥<br />
One Pound (16 ounces) = ℔<br />
One Pint (20 ounces) = O abbreviation for Octarius<br />
One Quart (2 pints) = qu<br />
One Gallon (8 pints) = C abbreviation for Conguis)
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16th century apothecary formulas also contained references to Handfuls which were abbreviated to M.j. Half handfuls written as M.β and little handfuls written as P.j. to further complicate matters, a handful measure was literally what you could hold in a cupped palm, you can see the problem with consistency using that unit of measure, due to the varying sizes of hands.
<br /><br />I have to say that despite reading and seeing references to handfuls having been used as a measure of weight in the Apothecary system since the 16th century, it is fairly uncommon and so far I have found no definitive proof of what the exact measure was. I have discovered references to another measurement for dry weight used around the same time called the <i>lock</i> which was used to deter the amount of dry weight goods that a person could grasp in one hand, and further discovered that the Greek word drachmē means “handful.”<br />
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Moving to the late 19th century, and the introduction of the 1878 British Weights and Measures act that required apothecaries to use the avoirdupois weight system that had been around since the 13th, instead of apothecaries’ weight, initially to measure goods that they sold, and then subsequently for using to measure medicines as well. <br /><br />Up until the late 19th century the drachm was known as the dram, when the new system was put in to place the spelling of dram was changed to ‘drachm’ to mark the difference between the avoirdupois ‘dram’ and the apothecary ‘drachm’. In 1971 the use of apothecary weights was formally abolished and chemists and druggists used the metric system to measure out and make up medicines.<br />
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Old Formulas also made use of roman numerals for quantities the roman numeral for 1 is <b>i</b>, 2 is <b>ii </b>a ½ was denoted as <b>ss </b>so if a formula called for 3½oz it would be written <b>℥iiiss</b>, in some formulas, a lower case <b>j</b> is used but it still has a value of 1. Walter Bastedo explained in his 1918 book “Materia Medica: Pharmacology: Therapeutics Prescription Writing for Students and Practitioners”.<br />
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“<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>Roman numerals of prescriptions small letters are employed as: iv = 4, xlviii = 48. In writing, small letters are used for one (i or j), five (v), and ten (x), and capitals for 50 (L), 100 (C), and 1000 (M); and it is customary to draw a line above all the letters making up the number, the dots of i and j being put above this line. In a number with terminal one, as one, two, three, seven, or eight, the last letter is printed j, or written as i with a stroke projecting below the line, e. g., ij, iij, vij. This is to signify that it is terminal. Errors have been made because of a comma inadvertently added, and even because of some mark, such as a fly-speck, upon the paper. The dot over the terminal one is an additional check; for if all the letters i and j are not dotted, the pharmacist may be in doubt as to the number intended. As v, x, 1 and c are not dotted letters, it is incorrect to place dots over them.</i></span>”<br /><br />
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So to translate the formula for Tinctura Aromatica in the above photo: -
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Calling for: -<br />
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Cassia Ʒx ℈ij<br />
Ginger Ʒiv ℈j<br />
Galangal Root Ʒij. gr. x.<br />
Cloves Ʒij. gr. x.<br />
Cardamom Ʒij. gr. x.<br />
Rectified Spirit and Water of each enough to make Ʒxvj.
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You would need the following amounts: -
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Cassia 10oz + 2 scruples (0.0914oz (total approx. 286g)
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Ginger 4oz + 1 scruple (approx. 114g)
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Galangal Root 2oz + 10 grains (approx. 57g)
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Cloves 2oz + 10 grains (approx. 57g)
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Cardamom 2oz + 10 grains (approx. 57g)
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Rectified Spirit and water 16 fluid oz
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A further example from Bowker’s book is for a formula for pills to be taken at night time to ease an ulcerated stomach, which called for: -
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Solid Extract Cascara - 2 drachms
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Capsicum – 1 drachm
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Extract of Chamomilla 2 drachms
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All to be mixed with gum mucilage and made in to 4 grain pills making them approximately 0.26g each by weight.
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Until now I've never got my head around these old weights and measures, until I converted a set of measures of mass and capacity into modern day metric based on a list of old weights, measures and equivalents taken from Harold Wards "Herbal Manual" from 1936, below I’ve given approximate metric equivalents for today which I hope the reader will find of use?
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<span style="color: #7b1fa2;">Apothecaries Measures of Mass
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<br />1 Grain = 0.0647g
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20 Grains = 1 Scruple (1.295g)
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3 Scruples = 1 Drachm (3.885g)
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8 Drachms = 1 Ounce (31.08g)<br /><br />
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<span style="color: #7b1fa2;">Measure of Capacity
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<br />1 Minim = 0.059ml
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60 Minims = 1 Fluid Drachm (3.6ml)
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8 Fluid Drachms = 1 Fluid Ounce (2.84123ml)
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20 Fluid Ounces = 1 Pint (0.568 litre)
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8 Pints = 1 Gallon (4.5459631 litres)
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<span style="color: #7b1fa2;">Equivalents in Domestic Doses
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<br />1 Minim = 1 Drop (0.059ml)
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1 Drachm = 1 Teaspoonful (3.6ml)
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2 Drachms = 1 Dessertspoonful (7.1ml)
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4 Drachms (½ Fluid Ounce) = 1 Tablespoonful (14.2ml)
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2 Fluid Ounces (5 Tablespoonsful) = 1 Wine (sherry) glassful (71.0ml)
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5 Fluid Ounces (8 Tablespoonsful aka a Gil) = 1 Teacupful (142.1ml)
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4313587598424168157.post-4234264101547185752018-05-10T14:53:00.001+01:002018-05-10T15:07:30.979+01:00Growing Mint<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Mint can be a rather unruly thug in the garden if it’s left to its own devices, but the human race has had a soft spot for this herb dating back to around 1,000 B.C. The Romans believed the consumption of mint would increase their intelligence; the ancient Egyptians used it as part of their funerary rites, and in medieval times mint was used to cure mouth sores and dog bites. It’s helped to whiten teeth and prevented milk from curdling. The Elizabethans used it as a strewing herb to keep fleas at bay and it’s also been used to help deter ants.<br />
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In Greek myth, Minthe aka Menthe and Mentha was the name of a beautiful water nymph pursued by Pluto, the God of the underworld. When his wife Persephone found out about the dalliance she turned Minthe into a plant that would be trodden underfoot. Having been caught in the act, Pluto could do nothing but accept his wife’s vengeance. <br />
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The Roman, Pliny the Elder, advised scholars to wear a crown of mint to aid concentration, but he also warned lovers that it was contrary to procreation. The Greeks, however believed the opposite - their soldiers were warned to avoid mint during a war as it was feared that increased love-making would diminish their courage. Mint is said to bring luck and helps to increase your money prospects if a few leaves are rubbed into the purse. Mint has been used to cleanse and protect the home from disease and negativity and is also a traditional folk cure for a headache; the cure was achieved by rubbing a few mint leaves on the forehead.
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<span style="color: #38761d;">Growing</span></h3>
<br />Mint is an herbaceous perennial with a square stem like other members of the labiate family, and has spikes or whorls of flowers in summer; the flowers come in a variety of shades including white, through to purple with a wide range of pink and bluey lilac shades in between. In height they range from 15-90cm. Most of the plants cultivated today originated in the Mediterranean, but only a handful of varieties can be sown direct from seed e.g. Spearmint, Peppermint and Curly Mint, the rest have to be raised from cuttings. Saving seed from your pineapple mint, won’t give you true to type plant, but will revert to the plant the cultivar was crossed with, so take stem or root cuttings of mints.<br />
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Most mints grow year in year out, only needing to be lifted, divided and replanted or given a top dressing of fresh compost, they will grow in almost all soils types and situations, so long as the soil is not too dry or too cold.Mint actually prefers soil which is slightly acidic and will thrive in heavy clay soils also. Mint will grow well in pots so long as you keep it well watered, don't allow it to dry out and re-pot it occasionally! Most mints have aggressive spreading roots and, unless you have the space to let them roam, they need to be restrained by some means such as planting them in containers that are buried in the soil to help contain their roots.
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Propagating mint is very, very easy and both are a good way to help rejuvenate your mint plant stocks, both methods are a good way of getting kids involved with gardening as they give quick results. <br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><b>Root Cuttings</b></span> - Mint puts out stems under the ground that sprout roots to anchor the plant, and to help it self propagate. To make fresh plants harvest several 2"-3" pieces of these rootlets and lay them on top of a pot of fresh compost and then cover lightly with compost leave water and leave for a couple of weeks. Pretty soon you will see new plants emerge that can then be used to replace older mint plants, or give them to friends.<br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><b>Water Cuttings</b></span> - Another quick and easy way to propagate mint is to take cuttings from the mint plant. You'll need a glass or a glass jar, I use one of our drinking glasses, you'll also need some water, you can use tap water but some areas have chemical nasties added to the water that can interfer with the root growth, you can use clean rain water but I always use bottled spring water when taking my cuttings. <br />
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Take a piece of you mint plant which is long enough to fit in your container usual around 6" in length. Ensure you remove the leaves from any part of the stem that will be under water, if you leave them they will rot and you'll get a slimey mess in the water and not healthy young roots. Trim the stem with a clean knife or scissors just under a leaf node - a leaf node is the area underneath where the leaves grow on the stem (see photo to the right) your rootlets will emerge from the leaf node areas that are under the water in a few days if the weather is warm. <br />
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Depending on the conditions your cuttings are taken (sunlight, water type used etc.) you could have a new mint plant(s) to pot on in 1 - 2 weeks. Other herbs can be rooted this way and I'll add information on this very soon, but mint is one of the quickest to root using the water method, making it ideal for children who want to see quick results.<br /><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;">Problems & Pests</span></h3>
<br />Mint can fall prey to pests such as frog hoppers and aphids and some diseases, the main ones are the fungal disease Mint Rust (<i>Puccinia menthae</i>) and a strain of Powdery Mildew (<i>Erysiphe biocellata</i>). Mint rust appears as rusty coloured blotches on the leaves, at the first sign, pick the leaves off the plant and get rid of them, I pinch out the whole stem to be sure. Don’t allow the spores to get into the soil, and don’t put the infected plants in to your compost bins. You can use a fungicide to treat the rust but NEVER on mint plants that you plan on consuming.
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Powdery mildew generally appears when the plants are very dry and suffering from water stress, keep the plants well watered and make sure that air freely circulates around them to keep mildew at bay. Should your mint plants become infected, spray with a simple solution of 1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda to 1 litre of water.<br />
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There are mint varieties which can be resistant to mint rust available if it’s a problem in your garden look for varieties such as Tashkent, Moroccan and Curly Spearmint from the spicata mints and Swiss Ricola and Black Peppermint from the piperitas Mentha's.<br />
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The Mint Leaf Beetle (Chrysolina menthastri) can also cause quite a bit of damage to mint plants. Despite the fact that each beetle is no bigger than 5-10cm long, they have a huge appetite for mint foliage. They're most active between May and August, in late Summer if you look closely at the mint you may also spot the larval stage of the mint beetle, a blackish, squidgy-looking grub which also munches its way through the mint leaves. This pest will also chew on other plants in the labiate family such as Lemon Balm, Catnip and Hyssop. The only successful way to eradicate these beetles is to pick them off and 'squish them' or find another way to dispose of them.<br /><br />
<h3>
<span style="color: #38761d;">Varieties</span></h3>
<br />Over 30 species belong to the mint-family. The most common types used to breed new varieties are Peppermint (Mentha piperita) with its dark green leaves, reddish stems and lavender flowers, and Spearmint (Mentha spicata) which has lighter green, pointed leaves and pink flowers and is gentler on the stomach for lots of people. Some find peppermint too strong and an irritant, spearmint is milder. There are several hundred varieties of mint worldwide, and more are being added all the time, as well as the two already mentioned, varieties include: Apple, Grapefruit, Lemon, Camphor, Cinnamon, Orange, Bergamot, Corn, Field, Water and Basil.
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<h3>
<span style="color: #38761d;"><br />Herbaholic’s Favourites</span></h3>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV-j1q2dgQpi0hFy7fzFwoYEhv_AZNZBY_TmJIi7rGe4Hw1ZX4WvSgvOUZlj99IEgz4V5J23c_t2jSTYBuMKWxHVUZhh4upiocal_pt1qYdFasRUgoUDIqKg5Fvromh9KNA7sWckVU3W29/s1600/mint-bowles.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="939" data-original-width="717" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV-j1q2dgQpi0hFy7fzFwoYEhv_AZNZBY_TmJIi7rGe4Hw1ZX4WvSgvOUZlj99IEgz4V5J23c_t2jSTYBuMKWxHVUZhh4upiocal_pt1qYdFasRUgoUDIqKg5Fvromh9KNA7sWckVU3W29/s400/mint-bowles.jpg" width="305" /></a></div>
My two favourites by far have to be ‘Bowles Mint’ - which was the very first mint I ever came in contact with, even today when I smell it, it takes me back to my childhood and the lamb roasts cooked by my mum on Sunday's, accompanied by fresh mint sauce from the garden. Bowles was the only ‘herb’ my dad grew and for me it’s THE mint to make mint sauce with, I’ve tried others but I always come back to Bowles. <br />
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My second favourite mint is ‘Chocolate Peppermint’, which makes what has to be one of my favourite herbal teas, the chocolate flavour seems to intensify when you dry the leaves, it never fails to give me an ‘after eight’ moment, and the taste is refreshingly indulgent, try using it to flavour homemade ice-cream. <br />
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I grow a lot of ‘Moroccan Mint’, its lovely as a tea either hot or cold and I chop it and use it sprinkled on cous cous and salads. I have favourite mints that I use for making pamper treats and household items, ‘Eau de Cologne Mint’ is great added to pot pourri to deter flying beasties, it makes a rather nice addition to a foot bath as well. Although I’m becoming fond of ‘Lavender Mint’ for that purpose these days, the scent of lavender is very pronounced, with the mint it’s like having two of my favourite herbs in one. ‘Swiss Ricola Mint’ is a really good mint to use in a facial steam when you have a cold; its minty camphor aroma is great for clearing stuffy sinuses.<br />
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There are a few mints I grow mostly for their decorative value, ‘Silver Mint’ is one of them, the leaves are like soft velvet, inviting you to stroke them, they have a soft spearmint aroma and make an excellent pot plant placed near a seated area in a sensory garden.
‘Corsican Mint’ is a semi evergreen, creeping mint with tiny leaves and tiny mauve flowers which prefers a moist and shady spot for optimal performance. I grow it in pots buried in the path, when its stepped on, it releases a pennyroyal like aroma. <br />
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‘Ginger Mint’ has variegated leaves that add colourful golden yellow splashes to break up greens, the flavour to me is more lemony than ginger, its one I grow but don’t use in the kitchen. ‘Curly Spearmint’ is a pretty mint, but the flavour just doesn’t really do much for me. Unlike the variegated ‘Pineapple Mint’, which I use it primarily as an ornamental, in tubs amongst summer annuals as a foil for the bright colours, but I do harvest the leaves to add to fruit salads and float in summer drinks, it has a flavour that is more fruity than minty but it’s lovely nonetheless.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4313587598424168157.post-28953497680505040702017-10-18T03:04:00.001+01:002017-10-18T03:05:20.428+01:00Making Your Own Herb Scented Ink<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRm_sKsb_lv8VKcAYo094vQoHb3_p7Unl7zy28k8w6DDM9r5O-J3FcaLYgf4pGt6_NFRbiZty7XcR8ZTAz6oFdR4ZQXgBRdS7qW22SQMQHVCWCxiiM_2hyphenhyphen6sAQh_nB63udhLpRABz9ETtR/s1600/scented-ink.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="559" data-original-width="812" height="440" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRm_sKsb_lv8VKcAYo094vQoHb3_p7Unl7zy28k8w6DDM9r5O-J3FcaLYgf4pGt6_NFRbiZty7XcR8ZTAz6oFdR4ZQXgBRdS7qW22SQMQHVCWCxiiM_2hyphenhyphen6sAQh_nB63udhLpRABz9ETtR/s640/scented-ink.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
Long before we communicated with each other using electronic mail and texts or interfaced via tablets, laptops and PC’s the written word was the favoured means of communication. Just like now communications and documentation occurred without ink, initially man communicated by painting on walls, he made marks and symbols and these evolved into letter writing.<br />
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The Ancient Greeks are believed to have perfected the method of using a writing stylus to make marks on wax tablets that were used to record important events, the Greeks were also the first culture to write messages that resemble the handwritten letters we are familiar with today in around 1,500 B.C.
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Wax tablets were left behind in favour of parchment and ink and inks for writing on parchment were perfected by the Chinese, ancient inks were a mix of soot, lamp oil and gelatine derived from animal skin. To these basic ingredients natural dyes from plants, fruits and minerals were used to create many different colours of ink around 1,200 B.C.
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Between the 16th and 20th centuries adding fragrance to inks became popular, and inks were scented with oils, resins and fragrant flowers, their perfumes offering a delicate, intangible fragrance to the writers personal letters, those fragrances wafted out to the recipients nose as soon as the envelope was opened and the perfume lingered mysteriously over the pages to be smelt time and time again. Lovers used fragrant inks like lavender and rose and tied their letters in bundles with ribbon.
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While most of us no longer write anything but shopping lists or small notes, some people do still use ink to write letters and cards to friends and family. If you’re amongst them then you may like to make your own scented ink? It can be made rather quickly and can be used to add a personal touch to your letters and cards. There is something unique and special about getting a handwritten letter where the scent evokes memories of the person writing it.
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Making your own scented ink is easy, there are two basic methods, of the two I prefer the second method. I find that the perfume is a lot stronger using oils than when using a decoction. Use method 1 if you want just a subtle hint of fragrance.<br /><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;">Method 1 - Using Lavender Flowers</span></h2>
Ingredients:<br />
<br />
15g Dried Lavender Flowers<br />
6 Tbsp. Distilled Water<br />
1 Small Bottle Blue Ink<br />
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<b>Method:</b> Using a pestle and mortar lightly crush the lavender flowers to help release the fragrance, but not too much that they become powdery, once crushed put the lavender into a saucepan with the water and bring it to the boil, then let it simmer for about 30 minutes or until you have just 2 tablespoons of liquid left.
Allow the scented water to cool and then strain the flowers through muslin or a fine nylon mesh and squeeze well to ensure you get all the liquid out.
Stir the lavender decoction in to the ink, bottle the ink, label and use to add a touch of fragrance to your written correspondence.<br /><br />
<h2>
<span style="color: #38761d;">Method 2 - Using Lavender Essential Oil</span></h2>
Ingredients:<br />
<br />
50ml of Blue or Lavender Blue Ink<br />
5ml of 95% Denatured Alcohol (If you can’t get that then use vodka at the highest proof you can get)<br />
5ml Lavender Essential Oil [5ml is approximately 100 drops]<br />
2 old teacups or small bowls<br />
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<b>Method: </b>Begin by putting your 5ml of alcohol/vodka into one of the old teacups and add your essential oil(s) and mix the alcohol and oils thoroughly. It’s very important to make sure that the oil and alcohol are completely blended together at this stage, because if they don’t become thoroughly blended then the oils won't blend with the ink and they will separate out.<br />
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In the second teacup add your coloured ink and then slowly and steadily stir in the perfumed alcohol mixture, I use the bottom of a pencil (flat end not pointed drawing end) to stir the ink/perfume mix as I slowly add the two liquids together.<br />
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Pour the perfumed ink into a clean glass bottle or jar and shake it thoroughly, your ink is then ready to use. Note: If you store the ink for any length of time the oils and ink may separate out, simply give the ink bottle a shake before use, with the lid on of course! The above method makes 60ml of scented ink.<br />
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Homemade inks can be partnered with a writing pen or quill and some pretty writing paper for giving to people who like to write letters. You can use any oil and corresponding ink colour, orange to make orange scented ink, peppermint in green ink, rose oil in pink ink and patchouli in brown ink. Alternatively make a personal blend adding a little cinnamon to the orange for festive letter and card writing. Ylang-Ylang or Jasmine for romantic letters, in fact any combination you chose. I like using the following combinations: -<br />
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Lavender and Chamomile<br />
Rose Geranium and Frankincense<br />
Patchouli, Orange and Cinnamon<br />
Peppermint, Lavender and Rosemary<br />
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N.B. It’s worth noting that when you add the alcohol and oil blend or the scented water to the ink it will change the inks colour and make it lighter, you are in effect thinning out the ink. So use dark coloured inks for best effect, light inks may look washed out once the perfume solution is added. Alternatively if it is washed out, add a few drops of a darker coloured ink until you achieve the desired colour. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4313587598424168157.post-35877616251914336932014-08-29T10:00:00.001+01:002020-07-08T11:26:31.904+01:00Book Review: The Herbalist's Bible<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-05j1yYZ3f5J9mqpYv3V6dtmjc924U9Aw7h90RFWl0iUgXFxWrxFx1FSUV8Qm-zrBOjOeWV_BRyyPisKMMEa_PLkB-P4g19hyphenhyphenczLcuzzeYyBw9JEr0Y0zKZ6utpokiHZwMidNUqvydJ9H/s692/herbalists-bible.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="440" data-original-width="692" height="406" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-05j1yYZ3f5J9mqpYv3V6dtmjc924U9Aw7h90RFWl0iUgXFxWrxFx1FSUV8Qm-zrBOjOeWV_BRyyPisKMMEa_PLkB-P4g19hyphenhyphenczLcuzzeYyBw9JEr0Y0zKZ6utpokiHZwMidNUqvydJ9H/w640-h406/herbalists-bible.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Herbalist's Bible <br />Photo © Debs Cook<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>The latest book by Julie Bruton-Seal and Matthew Seal entitled <strong>The Herbalist’s Bible: John Parkinson’s Lost Classic Rediscovered</strong> falls into the last category and will be read, used and treasured constantly from this day forward. I think it’s also becoming obvious that I’m very interested in herbal history and heritage,and these days most of the articles I write <span style="color: blue;"></span> have historical inclusions; be that in the form of facts, quotes, old recipes or references to herbal practices that took place in the past.</p>
<p>I’m rather interested in the way herbal medicine developed and how it was used and viewed during the 16th - 20th centuries but I confess to having a rather soft spot for the 17th century, so much so I can happily pick up a book or transcript written in 17th century English and understand the F for S and other idiosyncrasies of the language of the time and read it with ease. Of the 17th century herbalists the ones most often quoted are Nicholas Culpeper and John Gerard, in part I think, due to the fact that their herbals were easily accessible to the public and are still published in one form or another today.</p>
<p>John Parkinson (1567 – 1650) however is seldom quoted or mentioned these days, which is rather sad, considering that of the three writers of herbals of the 17th century, Parkinson is the one that should stand out. His knowledge and understanding of herbs and their uses far surpassed his contemporaries, and unlike Culpeper and Gerard, Parkinson was an original thinker who ventured forth his own ideas as well as quoting those that came before him. <br /></p>
<p>Given what I’ve just said above, you can imagine how much I squealed with joy when I first learnt that this book on Parkinson was being written, and how thrilled I was when Julie and Matthew asked me to proof read some of the chapters earlier in the year, from the proof-reading I already knew I was going to love the book even before I saw it in its entirety, then my review copy arrived...</p>
<h1><span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><strong>John Parkinson’s Lost Classic Rediscovered</strong></span></h1>
<p>Parkinson is known for 2 books the ‘Paradisi in Sole’ and the ‘Theatrum Botanicum’, the Paradisi has been reprinted in the past but the Theatrum has never before been reprinted since it was first published in 1640, not even in a condensed form and condensed this version is. Don’t buy this book expecting to see all of the 1,788 pages of the Theatrum - the biggest herbal ever to be published in English- which looked at over 3,800 plants. Any book that sets out to decrypt and comment on the entirety of the Theatrum, offering modern uses for the herbs Parkinson wrote about and compare how he used the herb with the way we use it today would be double if not triple the size and therefore costly.</p>
<p>What Julie and Matthew decided to do was select 75 chapters from the original book and look at almost 100 plant entries of Parkinson’s. Their choices and outline for the book are explained in the note to the reader on page 22, which outlines what they chose to put in the book and how they decided which herbs to include, using the following criteria:-</p>
<p><strong>1)</strong> Herbs that were well known to Parkinson that we still use today like Hawthorn and Saint John’s Wort, although as the authors explain not all the herbs used in Parkinson’s day were used the same way we use them today.</p>
<p><strong>2)</strong> Herbs used in the 17th century that would have been very familiar to Parkinson, but are no longer used today, these they dub the ‘lost herbs’ and include Figwort and Sanicle.</p>
<p><strong>3)</strong> Herbs selected that were new to Parkinson like Cocoa, Sassafras and Tobacco, herbs he was enthusiastic about getting to know, adding ‘unordered tribe’ and ‘exotic’ chapters to his book to include the herbs from the new world and share his discoveries of those new herbs.</p>
<p>The book begins with a lot of well researched information on the life of John Parkinson, his work as an apothecary, gardener, botanist and author, and paints a pretty clear picture of a well-respected man, dedicated to his craft who was so respected by the higher echelons that he was appointed as “King’s Herbalist” to Charles’s I, unlike Gerard and L’Obel who laid claim to the title but were never officially recognised by the royal court. What we have in The Herbalist’s Bible is an informed and inspired selection of herbs from Parkinson’s Theatrum.</p>
<p>Laid out in a ‘past/future’ kind of way, one side of the book shows Parkinson’s original entry which includes all the ‘Olde English’ spellings, Latin names that Parkinson knew the herbs by, their virtues, uses and the woodcuts used originally by Parkinson. With the addition that under each woodcut there are explanations of terms used by Parkinson and his contemporaries to help you understand your agues from your vulneraries.</p>
<p>On the facing page each herb is named in both English and Latin as it’s known today and its uses in the modern world are described and compared, the way Parkinson used some herbs differs to the way we use those herbs today, for me it was interesting to discover that 17th century herbalists like Parkinson used St John’s Wort as a wound herb and wasn’t familiar with its anti-depressant uses, today we are more familiar with using St John’s Wort for depression than as a styptic. Likewise, today herbalists often prescribed hawthorn as a tonic for the heart, but Parkinson was more familiar with its uses for easing kidney stones and dropsy.</p>
<p>As someone who advocates using those herbs available locally and those that were once used but are now long forgotten, I’m pleased to see that herbs such as the Archangels and members of the Deadnettle family are included, despite the fact that they no longer pay an important part in herbal medicine, they are still used by herbalists for treating many of the same ailments as did Parkinson. Scarlet Pimpernel was once used to treat plague and fevers, but today is viewed as simply a wildflower, Pellitory of the Wall an old remedy for gravel in the kidneys and urinary problems that was still being used in the early 20th century by the likes of Mary Thorne-Quelch who described it as “<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><em>one of the old remedies which have not been surpassed</em></span>” and which W.T. Fernie described as “<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><em>a favourite Herbal Simple in many rural districts</em></span>” exploring its use for treating dropsy, stubborn coughs and even for bringing relief from toothache. Weld is another herb no longer used medicinal today consigned only to the dyer’s herb garden, yet Parkinson was familiar with its use for bruising, breaking phlegm and as a remedy for the plague, old uses now long forgotten, so it’s wonderful to see them reclaimed for these herbs.</p>
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<p>What this book isn’t is a recipe book, if you’re expecting it to be like Hedgerow Medicine with lots of remedies to make at home you’ll be disappointed. That doesn’t mean there are no recipes, within the book you’ll find Parkinson’s take on Aqua-Vitae, the water of life with a modern day version from Matthew and Julie. There’s recipes for Sloe Syrup, Chilli Bread and Jasmine Leaf Oil – which Parkinson recommends for warming the body and for easing pains and cramps, and which Julie uses to make an ointment which she says helps to lighten freckles and liver spots. I’ve made the ointment myself and I’m seeing a definite fading of the liver spots on my hands.<br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgl953NsslSTGqfYHIx6B2WNLm95GJ4vy3tBMT0h0swiXnCT2wIumTe31KdjY_atMWgaYxqBUyNuZZrdZe4oxuLWlb7cgrPwlhSyAfVUcu_3mi26S_-0re7QODAJTujM2uYXIybgH4bWE_/s692/jasmine-leaf-ointment.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="440" data-original-width="692" height="393" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgl953NsslSTGqfYHIx6B2WNLm95GJ4vy3tBMT0h0swiXnCT2wIumTe31KdjY_atMWgaYxqBUyNuZZrdZe4oxuLWlb7cgrPwlhSyAfVUcu_3mi26S_-0re7QODAJTujM2uYXIybgH4bWE_/w640-h406/jasmine-leaf-ointment.jpg" width="619" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jasmine Leaf Ointment<br />Photo © Debs Cook<br /></td></tr></tbody></table>
<p>Parkinson was fond of using distilled waters of herbs and many of these like Comfrey, Honeysuckle and Ladies Mantle and their uses and virtues are included, there may not be many actual recipes, but there are lots of ideas for making infused oils, wines and ointments alongside insights for the reader to explore, and herbs to rediscover that will aid them to create remedies à la Parkinson for their own use and get a better understanding of how 17th century herb users used those herbs and remedies.</p>
<p>The appendix of the book for me is a minefield of useful information from and historical point of view, from the explanation of how Parkinson put together his plant ‘Tribes’, to the amounts that he would have paid for his herbs circa 1640. During the late 19th to the early 20th centuries there was a Parkinson revival and in 1884 a Parkinson Society emerged and this is discussed in the appendix, sadly by 1890 it had been absorbed into the Selborne Society an organisation set up in 1885 to commemorate the 18th century naturalist Gilbert White, although the Parkinson information absorbed seems to have been long forgotten. The appendix also gives a timeline for Parkinson from 1564, just before his birth in 1567 to his death in 1650 which highlights of events that happened throughout Parkinson’s life.</p>
<p>There is also a list of what Julie and Matthew refer to as Parkinson’s ‘Firsts’ which is a list of herbs first described by Parkinson in any British Flora, the appendix concludes with brief biographies of the botanists and herbalists that would have been familiar references to 16th and 17th century readers of herbals, listing their roles in herbal medicine, books and discoveries.</p>
<p>For me this book is a beautiful insight in to a man that I’ve respected from afar for a number of years, what Julie and Matthew have done is bring John Parkinson back to life, his book was and is a classic and deserves to be rediscovered be it in part of entirety. The book is visually stunning, highly informative and useful to people like myself who like to learn from our herbal ancestors. I raise my glass of tonic wine to the authors and hope that in the not too distant future they will bring us more of Parkinson’s tribes and thank them for making this great herbal accessible to all once again.</p>
<p>If you can’t wait to get your hands on a copy then the book is available from Amazon (UK) or <span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://hedgerowmedicine.co.uk/?products=list" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">direct from Julie and Matthew</span></a></span>.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4313587598424168157.post-38513977256070395412014-03-01T09:00:00.000+00:002020-07-08T13:29:59.170+01:00Composition Powder Recipes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwfoPoXT0TEcGs611w9-zT5XWmGlvJkeD57ViZ3kcLq2KANn8kptlCDmiiaBtYLVkg1EIf93D-4WbJKp_yauhuT3v3ke1dER2t31cl5nRoxszMB8udM2rvklT5ZZRnYIEwEK8odvaJIuRD/s812/patented-remedies.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="520" data-original-width="812" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwfoPoXT0TEcGs611w9-zT5XWmGlvJkeD57ViZ3kcLq2KANn8kptlCDmiiaBtYLVkg1EIf93D-4WbJKp_yauhuT3v3ke1dER2t31cl5nRoxszMB8udM2rvklT5ZZRnYIEwEK8odvaJIuRD/w640-h410/patented-remedies.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />I've been reading many old books recently that are full of herbal formula's that have faded into the past, not all of them deserve to be revived but some do. As well as medicinal recipes, there are cosmetic and household items that I want to try making and see how good they are. To this end I've started a new category on my blog to gather them all together and this is the very first post, over time I'll blog about interesting formula's, the people who promoted them, and I'll be trying a variety of the recipes out and posting the results.
<br /><br />To begin with I thought I'd start with Composition Powder, a remedy I've mentioned before in relation to George Slack. It was used for conditions specific to the upper respiratory tract, and was especially good for treating mucous producing colds and flu. It has however been used to cure a variety of ailments over the years here's half a dozen found on the internet.
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1) As a daily constitutional tonic
<br />2) For fighting colds, flu, fevers, sore throat, and inflamed tonsils
<br />3) To alleviate indigestion and stomach catarrh
<br />4) To address diarrhoea, haemorrhoids, and colitis
<br />5) To help heal canker sores and boils
<br />6) For easing lumbar pain and menstrual cramps
<br /><br />There are sites on the web that claim that Jethro Kloss made this remedy famous via his book "Back To Eden" which was first published in 1939, but he reinvented the wheel herbally speaking, I'm afraid. Below is an image of Kloss's formula, it's almost the same as William Fox's formula (see below) save for the fact that Kloss used White Pine (Pinus strobus) and not Canada Pine like Fox did.
<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: auto; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_a99cjpkwCDCSh__8EULoMuGDikkONI7rtunsBDN3y7R6EXYpVstUM1eQVM7BQJc3CprWSaJTYqyUrHf-akcW0YziGFzQnD5ZbBLdcB6aj7TrWLriyWTBrcOnnI0YoOLflrIvhi9lJoyz/s432/kloss-composition.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="361" data-original-width="432" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_a99cjpkwCDCSh__8EULoMuGDikkONI7rtunsBDN3y7R6EXYpVstUM1eQVM7BQJc3CprWSaJTYqyUrHf-akcW0YziGFzQnD5ZbBLdcB6aj7TrWLriyWTBrcOnnI0YoOLflrIvhi9lJoyz/s320/kloss-composition.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Kloss's Composition Powder Formula</b></td></tr></tbody></table>
Earlier examples of Composition Powder can be found in many of the old herb books, as yet I haven't found a mention before 1846, if I do I'll update this post. The 1846 date I came across refers to Benjamin Colby and his book "<b><a href="http://curezone.com/upload/pdf/books/A_Guide_To_Health_by_Benjamin_Colby.pdf">A Guide To Health</a></b>" where he gave his version of
<b><br /><br /><span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><font size="4">Composition Powder</font></span></b>
<br /><br />Take of
Bayberry (Myrica) <br />2 lbs.
Ginger (Zingiber) <br />1 lb.
Cayenne <br />2 oz.
Cinnamon <br />2 oz.
Prickly ash (Zanthoxylum) 2 oz.
<br /><br />All to be finely pulverized, and sifted through a fine sieve, and well mixed.
<b><br /><br />Dose</b> - One teaspoonful in two thirds of a cupful of hot water, sweetened; milk or cream may be added to make it more agreeable. This compound, being stimulant, astringent, and tonic, is an invaluable family medicine, being adapted to all forms of disease, in connection with laxatives, if costiveness be a prominent symptom, or relaxants in cases of constriction.
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It may be possible that Kloss brought the remedy back into the public eye and made it 'famous' again, but there are many other examples throughout the decades which means that other people before Kloss expounded the virtues of this remedy, for example... In 1907 William Fox, as already mentioned above, in his "<b><a href="http://www.swsbm.com/Ephemera/Family_Botanic_Guide-2.pdf" target="_blank">Model Botanic Guide To Health</a></b>" gave the following formula:
<b><br /><br /><span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><font size="4">Fox's Composition Powder
</font></span></b>
<br /><br />Bayberry 2ozs.
<br />Ginger 1oz.
<br />Pinus Canadensis [Canada Pitch] ½oz.
<br />Cloves 1 dram
<br />Cayenne Pepper 1 dram
<br /><br />All finely powdered, and mixed through a fine sieve.
<br /><br />George Slack's recipe from his book "<b>Slacks Herbal: A Treatise on the Pathology of Disease</b>" can be found in a previous post of mine. Slack's book was first printed in 1878 and had many reprints, the version quoted in my post on Slack is from my 1932 issue.
<br /><br />In R L Hool's "<b>Common Plants and their Uses in Medicine</b>", 1922, we find John Skelton's formula. Dr Skelton lived in Leeds and published a Herbalism Periodical between May 1852 and August 1855, it consisted of 40 weekly issues, each containing 16 pages, costing a penny each. It was by all accounts a lively periodical, not only pushing medical herbalism for the masses, but examining and promoting medical reform and other social issues. Dr Skelton was at one point a friend and follower of Dr Coffin, but he later became disillusioned with Coffin's methods and narrow-mindedness and spoke out against him.
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<br /><br /><span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><font size="4">Dr.Skelton's Composition Powder</font></span></b>
<br /><br />Poplar Bark 4ozs.
<br />Bayberry Bark 8ozs.
<br />Ginger 4ozs.
<br />Cloves 1oz.
<br />Cinnamon 1oz.
<br />Cayenne 1/4 oz.
<br />All in powdered form.
<br /><br />In my recently acquired copy of Peter MacEwan's <b><a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=GygRklqbZJAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Peter+MacEwan&source=bl&ots=lJj2jyGzjJ&sig=cBocYPw3q7I2L9wLzJ4bN4gvng4&hl=en&ei=w43-TNCfFs-JhQfMytCuCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CD8Q6AEwBw#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Pharmaceutical Formulas: the Chemist and Druggist's' Book of Useful Recipes for the Drug Trade</a></b>, P.755, there is a formula given for Composition powder which contains just 4 ingredients, namely Bayberry Root Bark, Ginger, Capsicum and Cloves, all in powdered form, and on P.614 a formula is given for Composition Essence which is made up of the composition powder, proof spirit, glycerine and water.
Alfred Hall and Arthur Barker edited the 1932 edition of the National Botanic Pharmacopoeia, contained within was a formula for composition powder that contained 1oz of powdered bayberry and ½oz of powdered Ginger, Spruce Fir, Cayenne, Cinnamon and Prickly Ash. There are countless others as well, they all have Bayberry Root Bark, Ginger and Cayenne in common, the herbalists amongst us would be able to give a better opinion of the different formula's and maybe present a Composition Powder for today? I've made Slack's formula up and didn't much like it, I think it was the bitter turmeric that didn't sit right with me.
<br /><br />My thanks go to Kevin Brown for supplying the formula's from Dr's Fox and Skelton and for supplying the information and formula from Hall & Barker.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4313587598424168157.post-15633570498132415532014-01-22T09:00:00.001+00:002020-07-08T13:26:03.940+01:00Old Proprietary Remedies and Curatives: Introduction<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgim5fIReWnyFeAzksgmZQaukBzvah21TTcdz0Uiul4MEb2gLG-zsikfvNu5KKPj1S5Qowp3u6PC-QkoLQOkaWMzXVDvO7UVq0rDN0Z-wg__ebkTVd9bU8nCufitf8LEAo8iumFxsTgxQG8/s1300/more-patented-remedies.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1300" data-original-width="550" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgim5fIReWnyFeAzksgmZQaukBzvah21TTcdz0Uiul4MEb2gLG-zsikfvNu5KKPj1S5Qowp3u6PC-QkoLQOkaWMzXVDvO7UVq0rDN0Z-wg__ebkTVd9bU8nCufitf8LEAo8iumFxsTgxQG8/w271-h640/more-patented-remedies.jpg" width="271" /></a></div>By the late-19th to early 20th century, manufactured, patented, brand-named or trademarked remedies began to replace the herbs and 'traditional' remedies in the apothecary shops as those same apothecary shops began to evolve into pharmaceutical chemist's, but that's a whole other post in itself. These over the counter remedies were known in the trade as 'proprietaries' and were accepted by the general public as medicine. <br /><br />19th century newspapers and magazines were filled with adverts for so many remedies and cures for just about every known ill of man, woman and child including "<b>Curic Wafers</b>" and "<b>Bell's Fairy Cure</b>" which were used to treat headaches, toothache and neuralgia, "<b>Keating's Cough Lozenges</b>" and "<b>Beecham's Cough Pills</b>" for coughs and colds, and "<b>Congreve's Balsamic Elixir</b>" and "<b>Tuberculozyne</b>" which were used for treating consumption.
<br /><br />If a person was suffering from lethargy, had tired blood or any other blood related problems, they would have seen adverts telling them that remedies such as ‘<b>Hood's Compound Extract of Sarsaparilla</b>’ or ‘<b>Harvey's Blood Pills</b>’ would soon have them feeling better. There were countless remedies for “curing” gout and rheumatism such as ‘<b>Gower's Green Pills</b>’, ‘<b>Dr Collie's Ointment</b>’ and the curiously named ‘<b>Genoform Tablets</b>’ which contained nothing more than salicyl-ethylene-glycol and starch which would, when used externally, have provided some pain relief but very little else to cure gout.
<br /><br />People with kidney complaints could choose from such remedies as ‘<b>Warner's 'Safe' Cure</b>’, ‘<b>Veno's Seaweed Tonic</b>’ and a wide variety of kidney pills and tonics like ‘<b>Dr. Var’s American Kidney Pills</b>’ which were soft capsules made from henbane and dandelion extract mixed with wheat flour, powdered squill root (Urginea scilla), a little potassium nitrate and oils of peppermint and juniper. <br /><br />Even the overweight could find a cure to help them slim down, remedies for fatness included ‘<b>Antipon</b>’ and ‘<b>XL Reducing Pills and Reducing Lotion</b>’ which promised "safe, speedy and efficacious" results. The most curious of this miracle slimming products was a remedy called "<b>Marmola</b>" which ran its advertising campaign with the question "<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>Is Fatness a Social Offence?</i></span>", the product contained amongst its ingredients powdered thyroid gland, although as yet I haven't been able to discover the source of the thyroid used.
<br /><br />There were patented remedies for baldness, cancer, haemorrhoids, nervousness and “women's complaints”. Those people who suffered from bouts of epilepsy also known as 'the falling sickness' could purchase such remedies as "<b>Ozerine</b>" which was described as "<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>an unfailing remedy for epilepsy</i></span>", and "<b>Osborne's Mixture</b>", Ozerine turned out to contain potassium bromide which was used as an anticonvulsant, and ammonium carbonate which was a compound added to smelling salts and also used to treat bronchitis and as an emetic, added to those ingredients water of chloroform and the mixture was sweetened with burnt sugar, YUK!
<br /><br />Cures were available for children to, which contained some alarming ingredients ‘<b>Pritchard's Teething and Fever Powders</b>’ for example contained antimony oxide, a chemical used today to prevent textiles and plastics from catching fire, calomel aka mercury chloride which was used to treat yellow fever in the late 18th century and also as a purgative, all mixed together with sugar of milk (Saccharum lactis) used as a carrier for the other ingredients. ‘<b>Fenning's Children's Cooling Powders</b>’ were slightly lighter in ingredients, the worst one was potassium chlorate which if handled incorrectly can spontaneously ignite or explode, which should have been a worry to 20th century mothers as Fenning's powders contained 70% potassium chlorate! Children were also given 'soothing syrups' laden with cocaine, opium or morphine.<br /><br />
If you weren't sure what was wrong with you, then there were the 'elixirs of life' or 'cure alls' such as ‘<b>Dr Martin's Miraclettes</b>’ and ‘<b>Therapion</b>’ which was described as "the most efficacious remedy" for "<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>all discharges</i></span>". Therapion came in 3 variants No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 and was touted as a liquid remedy which was used in French hospitals to “great success” and was claimed to cure “<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>chronic weakness, lost vigour and vim, kidney and bladder disease, blood poisoning and piles</i></span>”. The No. 3 variant of this cure all was made from water with glycerine added with traces of alkaloids and calcium glycerophosphate used in the treatment of hypocalcaemia. Herbally speaking this product did actually contain some herbs chiefly powdered liquorice which would have added some sweetness and flavour to counteract the bitterness from the gentian and damiana extracts, the mixture also included camphor, so would have been highly aromatic.
<br /><br />The list could and will go on, as I said above, over time I intend to look at some of the remedies mentioned above more closely as well as a few others, share what they contained and make a comparison with herbal remedies that were available at the time. Although some of these proprietary products are not herbal, from a historical and sociological point of view their stories make interesting reading and can be show us a lot when old herbal remedies are but alongside for comparison, so watch this space as I venture back in time to look at remedies that would have cured and those that would have done no more than make rich men richer.
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4313587598424168157.post-43251670577802517722012-06-19T15:23:00.004+01:002023-08-30T14:15:47.876+01:00Herbal First Aid For The Garden<div align="center">
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<b>Ladybird = Good Bug</b></div>
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<b>Scale Insect = Bad Bug</b></div>
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The idea of 'Companion Planting' is familiar to most people these days, we know that planting Basil in with our tomatoes can improve their flavour and planting French Marigolds (Tagete patula) will deter whitefly from our toms. Using herbal medicine to treat people and even animals is something that is widely accepted and practised in our historical past and currently, but using plant based medicine to cure plants seems to be something that isn't so well known. My latest Garden News article focuses on using herbs as first aid for the garden and in it I mentioned a few DIY herbal garden remedies you can make for yourself, so I thought it would be a good idea to add the recipes to my blog for those that want to have a go at making the recipes and trying them out for themselves.
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It would be easy once you've spotted something growing or munching on your herbs, to blast it away with the chemical version of a shotgun, but if you intend to eat them, an environmentally friendly approach to pest and disease control is required. Many herbs contain protective chemicals within their roots or foliage which can naturally tackle pests and diseases, for example T. patula mentioned above, exudes a natural chemical thiopene into the ground that kills off any bad soil nematodes in the soil surrounding them. Using the naturally occurring chemicals in many of our herbs aerial parts and roots can help combat a string of common garden pests and diseases. Don't forget to encourage good bugs such as Ladybirds, Lacewings and Hoverflies into the garden by growing nectar rich flowering herbs such as those covered in my herbs for bees article. I've put together a short video below that shows 12 herbs that can be used as herbal first aid for the garden with small factoids and tips, click on the YouTube video below to view it.
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<h2><br /></h2><h2>
‘Anti-Vampire Garlic Spray’</h2><div><br /></div>
Garlic contains a good dose of natural sulphur so as well as being a perfect deterrent for controlling mealy bugs, aphids and other little 'vampire' sap sucking insects, it will also act as an antibacterial agent and can help prevent fungal diseases.
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100g Garlic, Minced or Finely Chopped
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30 ml <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B007YZMNE0/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=herbalhaven-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=B007YZMNE0">Liquid Paraffin</a> or Vegetable Oil
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1 Tbsp <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005XXHPT8/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=herbalhaven-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=B005XXHPT8">Horticultural Liquid Soap</a>
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10 ml <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005XXHPT8/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=herbalhaven-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=B005XXHPT8">Garlic Essential Oil</a>
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470 ml Water
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Don't worry about peeling the garlic first, use the whole cloves, skin and all! To get the highest yield of natural oil from the cloves, bruise them first, use the flat of a large kitchen knife, put your knife flat on to the garlic clove and hit the knife with your hand, this will make the garlic release more of its natural oils and the sulphurous chemicals we want in our spray. To make up this recipe, soak the minced garlic in the liquid paraffin/vegetable oil for 24 hours at room temperature.
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After 24 hours, strain the garlic from the oil and using a spray bottle that holds 1 litre or more, pour the garlic infused oil in to the spray bottle, next add the horticultural soap, you can use washing up liquid if you don't have any, next add your garlic oil and then slowly pour in the water. Put the lid on the bottle and give the spray a vigorous shake to mix the oils and water together. Spray onto plants you wish to protect, never spray in full sun as the plant will scorch. Keep the spray in fridge or a similar cool place to prevent it going off, this spray can last up to 2 months if stored correctly.<div>
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<h2>Herbal Spray's</h2><div><br /></div>
<b>Yarrow (<i>Achillea millefolium</i>)</b> - With its built in insecticidal properties yarrow is an excellent herb for turning into a spray to help deter pests such as aphids, it's also an excellent natural fertiliser and believe it or not compost activator! To make a yarrow spray put 150g fresh chopped Yarrow leaves and flowers into a pan with 500ml water and bring to the boil, once boiled, turn off the heat and leave the yarrow 'tea' for 24 hours, after this time strain and plant material out and add the 'tea' to a spray bottle to which you've put a teaspoon of horticultural soap in to, put the lid on securely and shake the bottle to mix. Use as a spray to deter aphids and other soft bodied pests as needed.<br />
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<b>Chamomile (<i>Matricaria chamomilla</i>)</b> - Chamomile doesn’t just make a relaxing tea; you can use its fungicidal properties as a foliar spray to prevent damping-off disease and planting it in amongst other plants will help to boost their health. To make this spray make up a strong brew of chamomile tea, from fresh chamomile if you can get it, if not dried will do, leave to steep for a few hours (the longer the better), once cold add to a spray bottle and spray at the first signs of damping off disease or other fungal diseases. This spray will keep in the fridge for a few days but is best made up fresh when you need it.<br />
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<b>Pot Marigold (<i>Calendula officinalis</i>)</b> - This is a super spray to help deter asparagus beetles, tomato hornworms and other leaf cutting/chewing pests, that can make a mess of your your roses and other plants. Make up in the same way as the Yarrow spray substituting Marigold leaves and flowers for the Yarrow. Spray at the first sign of attack.
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<b>Neem Tree (Azadirachta indica)
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<b>Blackfly on Crampbark
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<h2><br /></h2><h2>
Magic Neem Mist</h2><div><br /></div>
Last weekend I visited a friends garden and she told me all about the new Neem (Azadirachta indica) spray that she'd been making and using on her garden, I was amazed at the results she'd obtained with this, I dubbed it a magical cure all. My friend happily shared the recipe with me and offered the following tips with my readers. "<span style="color: blue;"><i>I have found my Neem spray especially good for reducing white fly on Stevia plants in the greenhouse (it does not completely eliminate them - but gets them to tolerable levels) its also useful for deterring slugs on dahlias and on hostas. It is also good for reducing blackfly on sweet cicely, ox-eyed daisies and valerian flowerheads. It's prevented the decimation of my Cramp bark shrub with the dreaded Viburnum moth caterpillars at the beginning of the season and also saved the Mullien from Mullein moth caterpillars - this year I've had the most and healthiest looking complete leaves I've ever seen on the Mulleins! Also using the Neem Spray on my roses I've found that they have less black spot fungus.</i></span>"
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30 ml Sightly Warmed Neem Oil
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1.25 Litres Warm Water
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Dash of Washing Up Liquid.
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Simply mix all 3 ingredients in a garden spray bottle. Keep the mixture in the airing cupboard in the spraying or some place warm prior to use to avoid the oil solidifying. If allowed to get cold neem oil becomes solid. Shake before spraying. Spray under leaves if at all possible, this will mean that the neem solution will not get washed off in the rain and any pests that hide under the plants leaves will get a nasty taste in their mouths!
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<h2><br /></h2><h2>
Comfrey Liquid Feed</h2><div><br /></div>
Comfrey makes an excellent albeit stinky liquid feed for the garden , pick a handful of leaves and place them in a container with enough water to cover them. Cover the container and leave to ‘cook’ for 4 weeks in cold weather or 2 weeks in hot weather. Then, holding your nose, strain and squeeze the leaves to extract as much liquid as possible Use as a foliar feed at a rate of 3floz (90ml) Comfrey liquid to one gallon (3.5 litres) of water. Comfrey can be invasive, try growing the Russian Comfrey variety ‘Bocking No. 14’, this variety is one of the least invasive and has a good resistance to rust which can be a problem with Comfrey.
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Nettles are very mineral rich with high levels of silica and calcium, a nettle infusion sprayed onto plants will act as a tonic, and help improve their disease resistance. Leave the infusion to ferment like Comfrey liquid and it an be used in the same way as a mineral rich foliar feed. You can do exactly the same thing with Nettle (Urticara dioca), they are very mineral rich with high levels of silica and calcium, a nettle infusion sprayed onto plants will act as a tonic, and help improve their disease resistance. Leave the infusion to ferment like comfrey liquid recipe above and it an be used in the same way as a mineral rich foliar feed.
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<h2><br /></h2><h2>
Gardeners Hand Cream</h2><div><br /></div>
10g Marshmallow Flowers or Leaves
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10g Chamomile Flowers
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200ml Mineral Water
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10g Beeswax, Grated
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10g Shea Butter
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50ml Calendula Infused Oil
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10 Drops Lavender Essential Oil
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5 Drops Tea Tree Essential Oil
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5 Drops Orange Essential Oil
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5 Drops Benzoin Essential Oil or a Vit E Capsule to act as a preservative.
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1) Put the marshmallow and chamomile into a pan with the mineral water, bring to the the boil then leave to simmer for 10 minutes. Take it off the heat and allow it to become lukewarm, then strain the herbs from the liquid, measure 40ml's of the herb infused water and pour it back into the pan.
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2) Using a double boiler heat the Calendula oil, Shea butter and Beeswax gently together until melted, once melted, reheat the herbal infusion made in stage 1 until it's almost boiling, and add it to the oil/butter/wax mixture a little at a time whisking it together with a hand-whisk or an electric mix until all the 'water' has been whipped into the oil/butter/wax mixture.
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3) Whisk in the essential oils and the contents of the Vit E capsule if using, pour the cream into clean sterilised jars and seal. Use after washing hands or as a barrier cream prior to tackling tough garden jobs.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4313587598424168157.post-12444409151003077312009-10-29T22:59:00.005+00:002020-07-08T13:16:38.799+01:00'Herbalism An Exact Science' by Dr W T Fernie<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj1QeFdM5jEtwPp_-X_nNqMB4H2sNYyIIG4Ayw3xSYhKk78ySinQTxpEBNFcHHuE2lBmDl4Sw8djxxo8XpnTbSLIuBzwpmQubIczTXxIHs_VW_3q6BfpKwTKWeFMXZzqSHCevAZkmEMWLM/s812/elderberries.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="550" data-original-width="812" height="434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj1QeFdM5jEtwPp_-X_nNqMB4H2sNYyIIG4Ayw3xSYhKk78ySinQTxpEBNFcHHuE2lBmDl4Sw8djxxo8XpnTbSLIuBzwpmQubIczTXxIHs_VW_3q6BfpKwTKWeFMXZzqSHCevAZkmEMWLM/w640-h434/elderberries.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>I first encountered Dr Fernie on the Herb Society forum thanks to a chap called Kevin Brown mentioning him back in 2006. Kevin like me is interested in the old herbalists and old herbalist shops and has not only gifted me with wonderful old books from his personal herb book collection, he has become a herbal ally and friend, even though we have never met. Fernie continued to pop up getting mentioned in books by Hilda Leyel who often quoted his remedies and ideas, he is mentioned by Eleanour Sinclair Rohde, Mary Thorne-Quelch and Maud Grieve, plus countless other herbal writers of the 20th century. We hear a lot about how we're losing our herbal heritage and how people should be passing on the knowledge of the herbs their grandparents used, and I totally agree. I also think that we should be reading the herb books, pamphlets, lecture notes and essays from the past and looking at herbs that were commonly used by our great, great grandparents and seeing why they're no longer used and if they can be revived.
<p>I find it interesting to look back at what herbs were used way back when and compare them to what we use now. It's also interesting to see what illnesses and diseases were being treated then as opposed to now. In the west diseases like cholera, scurvy and TB still occur even to this day, albeit not in the way they did in earlier times, today we have a raft of modern diseases like stress and anxiety, and illnesses not to so easy to see such as ME. I find it interesting as a person with a thyroid condition that in the Victorian herbals not much mention is made of this condition, nor treatment for it, Goitre aside, but today in the west its becoming increasingly common to be diagnosed and treated for a thyroid linked problem.</p>
<p>But I digress, as I often do when writing about herbal things, the story of herbs and their uses is such a vast subject and crosses so many times, places, countries, uses and people, that its difficult to stay in one place, I often get sidetracked with my research and end up discovering a pile of new mysteries to solve before I've closed the book on the case I'm investigating at that moment, this week I've been researching Heath & Heather Ltd, Maud Grieve, William Ransom and about 6 other people and companies, its so easy to get sidetracked especially when those people begin to become linked in ways you wouldn't have thought!<br /></p>
<p>Back to Fernie, who after all is the reason for this post... The man himself was a herbal ghost as far as information went, beyond the books he wrote, little information on him seemingly existed. There have even been suggestions that Dr W. T. Fernie was a pen name of someone else and the man never really existed, my gut told me when I heard that, that is wasn't true, so I began to dig and research. </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx00fMn3RawDfS-vGF3oYPCpYfS2ahb007C0REthVGXd39V6qCQ_JFgr-D_SfIrWBqR3qqQPptZtWiu5TD8lvXyVsKD4PHhzbhe9XYYJr6n-FXpau-Aq6jinuxqcILukbB48719cb95vtY/s701/debs-fernie-grave.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="701" data-original-width="550" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx00fMn3RawDfS-vGF3oYPCpYfS2ahb007C0REthVGXd39V6qCQ_JFgr-D_SfIrWBqR3qqQPptZtWiu5TD8lvXyVsKD4PHhzbhe9XYYJr6n-FXpau-Aq6jinuxqcILukbB48719cb95vtY/w314-h400/debs-fernie-grave.jpg" width="314" /></a></div><p>When I go off to find out more about a person or thing, it never sits right with me if I fail to uncover enough information to sate my curiosity, I blame my Grandad for making me love Sherlock Holmes as a young girl, those old movies and books he encouraged me to read furnished me with the subsequent need to solve mysteries and find answers to feed my inner Sherlock. <br /><br />The lack of Fernie information led me to begin looking for answers in places I ended up visiting and coming away with a few more clues or another piece of the mystery solved every time, and although the case isn't closed, there are a few things I am still 14 years later having trouble resolving but I will, my book on Fernie is coming along. So far I've discovered where, when and to whom he was born, I've traced his family back to his great grandparents, I know of his siblings, his career and I've found a photo of the man himself and even visited his grave.</p>
<p>My research continues and when I'm done I hope to publish a small booklet about him, this blog post is a result of Kevin asking me recently whether I was ready to reveal who Dr Fernie was yet, sadly I'm not. But I thought I'd add this little article I came across in an 1927 copy of Heath & Heathers book, come catalogue, they called the 'Famous Herb Book', it's an extract taken from the Introduction of "Herbal Simples" a book written by Dr Fernie in 1895, which is the book of his most often quoted from. <br /></p>
<p>" <span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>Hitherto, medicinal Herbs have come down to us from early times as possessing only a traditional value, and as exercising merely empirical effects. Their selection has been commended solely by a shrewd discernment, and by practice of successive centuries. But to-day a closer analysis in the laboratory and the skilled provings by experts have resolved the several plants into their component parts, both singly and collectively. So that the study and practice of curative British herbs may now fairly take rank as an exact science, and may command the full confidence of the sick for supplying trustworthy aid and succour in their times of bodily need.</i></span></p><span style="color: #7b1fa2;">
</span><p><span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i> Scientific reasons may readily be adduced for prescribing all our best known native Herbal Medicines. Among them the Elder, Parsley, Peppermint, and Watercress are familiar examples of this fact. Almost from time immemorial in England, a 'rob' made from the juice of Elderberries, simmered and thickened with sugar, or mulled Elder wine concocted from the fruit, with raisins, sugar and spices, have been popular remedies in this country, if taken hot at bedtime, for a recent cold or sore throat. But only of late has chemistry explained that Elderberries furnish 'viburnic acid,' which induces sweating and is specially curative of inflammatory bronchial soreness. So, likewise Parsley, besides being a favourite pot herb, and a garnish for cold meats, has been popular in rural districts as a tea for catarrh of the bladder or kidneys. It has recently been learnt that the sweet-smelling plant yields what chemists call 'apiol,' or Parsley-Camphor, which, when given in moderation, exercises a quietening influence on the main sensific centres of life - the head and the spine. Thereby, any feverish irritability of the urinary organs inflicted by cold, or other nervous shock, would be subordinately allayed.</i></span></p><span style="color: #7b1fa2;">
</span><p><span style="color: #7b1fa2;"> <i> Again, with respect to Peppermint, it's cordial water, or its lozenges taken as a confection, have been popular from the days of our grandmothers for the relief of colic in the bowels, or for the stomach ache of flatulent indigestion. But this practice has obtained simply because the pungent herb was found to diffuse grateful aromatic warmth within the stomach and bowels, whilst promoting the expulsion of the wind; whereas we now know that an active principle, 'menthol' contained in the plant, and which may be extracted from it as a camphoraceous oil, possesses in a marked degree antiseptic and sedative properties which are chemically hostile to putrescence, and preventative of dyspeptic fermentation.</i></span></p><span style="color: #7b1fa2;">
</span><p><i><span style="color: #7b1fa2;"> Lastly, the Watercress has for many years held credit with common people for curing scurvy and its allied ailments, while its juices have been further esteemed as of especial use in arresting tuberculous consumption of the lungs; and yet it has remained for recent analysis to show that the Watercress is chemically rich in 'anti-scorbutic salts,' which tend to destroy the germs of tuberculous disease, and strikes at the root of scurvy generally. These salts and remedial principles are 'sulphur', 'iodine', 'potash', 'phosphatic earths,' and a particularly volatile essential oil known as 'sulphocyanide of allyl,' which is most identical with the essential oil of White Mustard.</span>"</i></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4313587598424168157.post-2630829292265235072009-03-18T09:19:00.002+00:002020-07-08T13:19:56.789+01:00A Few Niggles About Grow Your Own Drugs<div style="text-align: center;">
<img alt="Lavender & Calendula" height="263" src="https://www.herbal-haven.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/lav-calendula.jpg" width="350" /></div>
<br />I have a couple of small niggles about the programme recipes and the book recipes, some of the recipes in the book aren't adhered to on the show, examples are in week 2 'Flowers' programme, James used lemon geranium leaves which he referred to as just 'scented geranium leaves', the leaves look different to rose geranium for those that don't know. The additional clue to what type of scented geranium he used was when Freddie, the young lad helping James make the remedy, described the scent as being like 'lemony fish'.
What James didn't explain is the scented geranium leaves were being added for their astringent properties, lemon geranium is astringent, but rose geranium which is the one listed in the book has both astringent and emollient properties, both ideal for adding to skin lotions and creams. <br /><br />He also didn't explain that they aren't strictly geraniums but pelargoniums. I did write an article for the Herb Society website on <span style="color: green;">Scented Geraniums</span> for anyone that may be interested. In fact as I love scented geraniums so much I feel another blog post coming on about these fragrant beauties :)
<br /><br />He's using mostly fresh plant material, but most of the plants will only be available now in their dried form and so far on the programme I don't recall hearing him mention to people if you're using dried herbs use half the quantities. Something that people need to know, the book does mention this in some of the recipes, but not everyone will have the book.
<br /><br />Another niggle I have is about the recipe for <b>Neem Lotion for Headlice</b> shown in week 3 'Trees'. In the online recipe, and in the book the recipe has 6 minced garlic cloves added, but in the recipe demonstrated on the show it had no garlic at all. Personally I don't see why he couldn't have used a neem leaf infusion with some soapwort root to help it lather to make it more like a shampoo and add some neem, garlic and tea tree oils to the mix instead of using so much oil, unless the point is its the oil that kills the lice?
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James is looking at 'herbs' next week, umm forgive me but as far as I'm concerned all the things he's taken a look at so far are herbs! I consider a herb to be any plant that can be used for its flavour, fragrance, medicinal properties, pesticide properties, can be used as a dye and a myriad of other uses, so that opens the field to a huge number of plants. The remaining two programmes focus on vegetables and roots, although I'm not sure in which order. Don't get me wrong my small niggles aside this is a great programme, in so much as its getting people in their kitchens and trying to make their own simple remedies and beauty treatments. I know from sales in my own shop that people are having a go, since the programme started I've seen a rise in the sale of lavender, hops, calendula, gum arabic etc. It's also been an active topic of conversation at the recent Mercian Herb Group meetings and workshops I've been along to lately.
<br /><br />There has been a lot of controversy from angry herbalists because apparently no herbalists were consulted during the making of the programme or the book, only a pharmacist was consulted apparently. I've made my point about nutritionists not getting up in arms when Jamie Oliver releases a new cookery book and doesn't consult them in a few other places, so I won't mention that again.
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Whilst I can see and agree with some of the points that some of the rational herbalists are making, I'm taken aback at the condemning attitude that the majority of them have about the programme, and by them not embracing it as a vehicle to begin re-educating people about our medicinal herbal heritage and the many benefits and uses of herbs. They should be being more positive and turn the negative aspects they see in the show and book and any issues they have, into something more positive and maybe next time the BBC will consult them? They certainly won't get brownie points by pouting, sulking and pointing fingers!
<br /><br />That aside, I've since discovered that the book was written with the help of Lorraine Wood a Medical Herbalist practising at the <span style="color: green;">Archway Clinic of Herbal Medicine</span> in London which is a charity company that is accredited by NIMH (National Institute of Medicinal Herbalism). Archway provide <span style="color: #333333;">high quality, low cost, Western medical herbal treatment and clinical training for the BSc in Herbal Medicine degree run by </span><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: green;">Middlesex University [<span style="color: #f57c00;">2019 update, sadly Middlesex University no longer offer a BSc in Herbal medicine, the umber of universities that do can now be counted on 1 hand and that number is shrinking fast!</span>]</span></span><span style="color: #333333;">. Strange that herbalists aren't acknowledging this fact, but maybe they don't know its the case? </span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4313587598424168157.post-78330116437318876562009-03-14T16:49:00.001+00:002023-08-30T14:18:14.356+01:00Simple Flower Essences<br />
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<img alt="Horse Chestnut 'Sticky Bud'" src="https://www.herbal-haven.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/sticky-bud.jpg" /></div>
I recently uploaded an article by Sarah Head to the Herb Society website about <span style="color: green;">Horse Chestnut</span>, in it she details how to make a horse chestnut flower remedy, so I thought I'd have a go. This weekend on our walk I found a few trees with plenty of 'Sticky buds' on them so picked enough to make the remedy. The thin white line between my finger and the bud in the photo above is actually the sticky sap that surrounds the leaf bud and it really is sticky, almost glue like.<br />
The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse-chestnut_(tree)" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="Wikipedia Horse Chestnut Article"><span style="color: green;"><b>Horse Chestnut</b></span></a> (<i>Aesculus hippocastanum</i>) is not a native of the UK and is often confused with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Chestnut" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="Wikipedia Sweet Chestnut Article"><span style="color: green;"><b>Sweet Chestnut</b></span></a> (<i>Castanea sativa</i>) also not a native of the UK and another plant said to have been introduced by the Romans. Sweet chestnuts are edible but horse chestnuts are not, the leaves on the sweet chestnut are different to horse chestnut as are the capsules that surround the nut, sweet chestnuts look more like hedgehog prickles, whilst horse chestnut resembles a slightly spiky golf ball.<br />
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Sarah's simple recipe for Horse Chestnut Flower remedy is useful for dealing with “mental chatter, easing repetitive thoughts or worrisome behaviours” and this is how you make it:- Pick 6-8 sticky buds. Place them in a stainless steel or glass saucepan and cover with spring or distilled water. Place a tightly fitting lid on the saucepan, place on the heat and bring to the boil slowly. Simmer for about twenty minutes. Remove the saucepan from the heat and leave to cool. When the infusion is completely cool, remove 50ml and place in a sterilised glass bottle (dark glass is best). Add 50ml brandy to the infusion to help preservation.<br />
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This is the mother essence. It can be taken as it is using 4 drops under the tongue or in water or fruit juice 3-4 times a day or every half hour in a crisis. Sarah advises us to take care when cleaning out the saucepan used for making the remedy as the buds leave a very sticky residue around the edges when cooked. She wasn't wrong, my pan was rather sticky despite being non stick, but with some hot water and scrubbing it cleaned up like new. The remedy really is simple to make, the hardest part was cleaning the pan.<br />
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<a href="https://www.herbal-haven.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/dandelion-flower-remedy.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Sun Infused Dandelion Flower Essence" border="0" height="299" src="https://www.herbal-haven.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/dandelion-flower-remedy.jpg" width="350" /></a></div>
At one of Sarah's workshops in May last year we made a couple of sun infused flower essences hawthorn and dandelion. I took a sample of dandelion flower essence home with me and I use a couple of drops when I'm feeling tense. This year I'm going to make a few more flower essences using the sun infused method that I can use to help me when I experience different things that I find difficult to cope with. Amongst the ones I want to make are honeysuckle, rose, gorse, dandelion, calendula, blackberry, borage, peppermint and lavender.<br />
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Making sun infused flower essences is easy, you need a sunny day a clean glass bowl, pure spring water and the flowers of your choice. Find your sunny spot, and a spot that is going to stay sunny for at least 5 hours. Add the water to the bowl, then sprinkle the flowers on the top and leave them to infuse in the water for 3 - 5 hours. Once infused fill a bottle 2/3rds full of the sun infused flower essence and add 1/3rd brandy, take a few drops in water or juice several times a day.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4313587598424168157.post-44276249334856714412009-02-28T10:05:00.000+00:002019-09-11T10:06:41.231+01:00Alkanet Alchemy<div style="text-align: center;">
<img alt="Alkanet Alchemy" height="269" src="https://www.herbal-haven.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/alkanet-alchemy.jpg" width="350" /></div>
<br />Just got back from a wonderful 'playgroup' at Sarah's, I call them playgroups, because you spend so much time having fun, laughing and learning that it hardly feels like work, so calling them workshops seems to formal to me lol! This time we investigated creams and salves, after a discussion I'd had with Sarah recently about Alkanet (<i>Alkana tinctoria</i>) and its dyeing properties Sarah said we could have a go at making a lip balm using it. And boy does it ever work wonders as a dye for cosmetics! Everybody was in awe at the beautiful colour the Alkanet Root gave, whilst I had one of those 'Harry Potter' moments, gazing into the pan like it was a cauldron marvelling at the alkanet alchemy going on in there.<br />
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At a Herb Society demonstration last year Tina Stapely mentioned using alkanet to get a pink colour for creams and salves etc, she must put a very small amount in to get pink as it seems very potent. As an aside she also mentioned using Calendula (<i>Calendula officinalis</i>) to get a pale yellow to orange colour and Ribwort Plantain (<i>Plantago lanceolata</i>) to achieve green, but Dandelion flowers (<i>Taraxacum officinale</i>) also give a really pretty daffodil yellow colour and St John's Wort oil will turn a cream, lotion or balm pink.<br />
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The recipe we used was adapted from one in Josephine Fairley’s book “The Ultimate Natural Beauty Book” ISBN 978-1856265133. We changed quantities so everyone could take a jar home and the main oil was changed, in the book olive oil is used, but we used a double infused calendula oil instead. I'm giving the recipe for our version of the recipe below, the quantities were tripled, except the alkanet, which for 75ml (3oz) of oil in the original recipe is given as 45g (1½ oz). Although I think that is way too much, as with 225ml of oil there was still more colour than needed. Next time I make this I would only put about 10-20g of alkanet in to start, and keep adding more until I get the colour I'm after.<br />
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The rose essential oil is given in the original recipe as 9 drops, we didn't triple this just added 12 drops. The beeswax also said 20g (3/4 oz) but Sarah thought that was too much for the small quantity the recipe was making, and our tripled recipe would only need 1oz of beeswax and that's what we used. She was exactly right, the quantity we made over half filled 16 of the tiny 28g preserve jars you get from hotels etc.<br />
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<b><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Rosebud Lips Balm</span></b>
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225ml (9floz) Calendula Oil
<br />3 Tablespoons Jojoba Oil
<br />45g (1½ oz) Dried Alkanet Root
<br />30g (1oz) Beeswax
<br />12 Drops Rose Essential Oil<br />
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<b>Method </b>- Gently heat both oils in the top of a double boiler for about 10 minutes. Remove from the heat, add the alkanet root and steep for around 30 minutes, to extract the colour from the root.<br />
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Strain the root from the oils through a muslin cloth. Return the oils to the double boiler with the beeswax. Once this has melted, remove from the heat and add the rose essential oil drop by drop. Pour into small sterilised pots or jars. Allow to cool thoroughly before putting the lids on.<br />
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The lip balm was tested by everyone except the guys, (although Gary said he would try some later ;) ) and it did turn everyone's lips a light rosy red colour, not too intense, just a nice pleasant shade and it is a wonderful moisturiser for the lips. I suffer from dry cracked lips in the winter and this balm helped make my lips feel soothed and soft, part of that will be down to the calendula.<br />
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<img alt="Rosebud Lips Balm before setting" height="261" src="https://www.herbal-haven.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/rosebudlips-balm.jpg" width="350" /></div>
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Other things we made today included an aqueous cream which we added infused oils, tinctures and essential oils to. I chose to make a rose geranium cream, I added calendula oil, st john's wort tincture and rose geranium oil, it smells wonderful and will get used often. It was so easy to make as well, following Sarah's recipe I can easily replicate the recipe at home. I think some of my family members will get homemade herbal creams for Xmas this year tailored to suit them.<br />
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We also made a salve for sore hands, we used a combination of plantain, calendula, yarrow and sweet violet double infused oils with beeswax. Once again it was really easy to do, the great thing about Sarah's 'playgroups' is you always get to have a go at something yourself and you get to take away something that you've made. As I'll be getting a double boiler this week I'll be able to begin making my own infused oils, add them to the tinctures I've already made and the ones yet to make and I'll be able to produce a variety of herbal hand creams, balms and salves to suit all my needs. The alkanet as a cosmetic dye has really spurred me on to investigate using it to dye wool and cloth, so watch this space, more dyeing posts to come in the future and more recipes I'll be bound.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4313587598424168157.post-80625820874613241612009-02-27T17:00:00.001+00:002020-07-02T17:00:32.007+01:00Shakespeare's Herbs<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt5JQGU33qrP-VM63jvaSqpaXFqGq9riCO29P8UUxI0G1Q7l45Mt62OL-V_e91KGa53ahAQisnjAjyXc_rc0iuyIPpySLkquZsGFQ3sow4S6C6DgyiMi59q76-ugxTXA2eg5rGV3o0hGYY/s812/william-shakespeare-rose.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="William Shakespeare Rose" border="0" data-original-height="577" data-original-width="812" height="454" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt5JQGU33qrP-VM63jvaSqpaXFqGq9riCO29P8UUxI0G1Q7l45Mt62OL-V_e91KGa53ahAQisnjAjyXc_rc0iuyIPpySLkquZsGFQ3sow4S6C6DgyiMi59q76-ugxTXA2eg5rGV3o0hGYY/w640-h454/william-shakespeare-rose.jpg" title="William Shakespeare Rose" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">William Shakespeare 2000 Rose © Debs Cook<br /></td></tr></tbody></table>
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<i><b><br /></b></i><div style="text-align: center;"><i><b>"What's in a name?
That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."</b></i><br /></div>
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Deeply fragrant joy! This week my William Shakespeare 2000 rose finally arrived from <a href="http://www.davidaustinroses.com/english/Advanced.asp" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="David Austin Roses"><b><span style="color: green;">David Austin Roses</span></b></a>, I fell in love with this wonderfully fragrant rose last year at Gardeners World, but they had none left to buy at the time. He arrived as a bare rooted rose, so I've potted him up and he'll be planted out when the frosts have all gone. I can't wait as he'll be a perfect fragrant candidate for making wine, rose tincture and a variety of other rosy delights, as you can see from the picture above taken at GW last year, he's a rich velvety crimson, gradually changing to an equally rich purple as he gets older. He has a beautiful strong, warm Old Rose fragrance and also apparently has excellent disease resistance to, he'll replace Cardinal de Richelieu, as the Cardinal isn't as fragrant as I was led to believe and he suffers from blackspot!
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2009 is a very good year to be adding Shakespeare to my garden; this year the Herb Society annual conference and AGM is to be held in Stratford-Upon-Avon over two days and the theme is Shakespeare's Herbs. Day two will involve visits to the Shakespeare's Birthplace garden and Hall Croft home of Shakespeare's son-in-law John Hall, which I'm looking forward to visiting.
I've had a love hate relationship with Shakespeare over the years, when I was 12-14, if asked I'd say I hated him, that was because I had a real pain of an English literature teacher, who force fed us Shakespeare, and made us use a fountain pen for our class and homework and punished us if we didn't (this was the age of the biro for goodness sake!). His lessons were frankly boring, all I learnt about Shakespeare was I would avoid him when I left school! <br />
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As I got older I began to appreciate the plays and sonnets, but my passion for Shakespeare lay in the herbs and plants he mentioned in his works. When I went back to rediscover Shakespeare after my school trauma, I was astonished at the number of herbs and plants that turned up in his works, take for example this section from A Midsummer Night's Dream:
<i>"<span style="color: #7b1fa2;">I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oslips and the nodding violet grows.
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine
With sweet musk-roses with eglantine
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night
Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight.</span>"</i><br />
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Recently I picked up an old book published in 1935 by <a href="http://www.medici.co.uk/about/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="The Medici Society"><span style="color: green;"><b>The Medici Society</b></span></a> written by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanour_Sinclair_Rohde" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="Eleanour Sinclair Rohde"><span style="color: green;"><b>Eleanour Sinclair Rohde</b></span></a> entitled "<b>Shakespeare's Wild Flowers, Fairy Lore, Gardens, Herbs, Gatherers Of Simples & Bee Lore</b>" in which she attempts to identify the plants that Shakespeare wrote about. Her observations are historically interesting although I'm uncertain how accurate the facts as presented by Ms Rodhe's are. <br /><br />There are several coloured illustrations attributed to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Le_Moyne" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="Jacques le Moyne de Morgues"><b><span style="color: green;">Jacques le Moyne de Morgues</span></b></a>, a French artist and member of Jean Ribault's expedition to the New World circa 1562. There are also a number of black and white illustrations from La Clef des Champs (The Key of Fields) from 1586 which is an excessively rare book. The book also includes a chapter with suggestions for making your own Shakespeare Garden and provides a myriad of quotes that you may like to include in the garden. Ms Rohde lists 169 plants in total with their Latin names (as in 1935 some have changed since then), I was pleased to observe that I grew a good number of them in my garden already for example:<br />
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<b>Balm/Lemon balm</b> Melissa officinalis Antony and Cleopatra 5.2 (although Ms Rhode points out that balm could also have referred to the Balm of Gilead tree (<i>balsamodendron gileadense</i> now <i>Commiphora opobalsamum</i>) which is also called Balsam of Makkah (Mecca).<br />
<b>Bay laurel</b> Laurus nobilis King Richard II 2.4<br />
<b>Broom</b> Cytisus scoparius A Midsummer Night’s Dream 5.1<br />
<b>Burnet</b> Sanguisorba minor King Henry V 5.2<br />
<b>Chamomile</b> Chamaemelum nobile King Henry IV, Part I 2.4<br />
<b>Carnation</b> Dianthus The Winter’s Tale 4.4<br />
<b>Fennel</b> Foeniculum vulgare Hamlet 4.5<br />
<b>Gillyvor/Gillyflower</b> Dianthus The Winter’s Tale 4.4<br />
<b>Honeysuckle</b> Lonicera periclymenum Much Ado about Nothing 3.1<br />
<b>Hyssop</b> Hyssopus officinalis Othello 1.3<br />
<b>Lavender</b> Lavendula angustifolia The Winter’s Tale 4.4<br />
<b>Marigold/Calendula</b> Calendula officinalis Pericles 4.1<br />
<b>Mint</b> Mentha The Winter’s Tale 4/4<br />
<b>Myrtle</b> Myrtus communis Anthony & Cleopatra 3.12<br />
<b>Parsley</b> Petroselinum crispum Taming of the Shrew 4.4<br />
<b>Rose</b> Rosa sp. The Merry Wives of Windsor 3.1<br />
<b>Rosemary</b> Salvia rosmarinus syn. Rosmarinus officinalis The Winter’s Tale 4.4<br />
<b>Thyme</b> Thymus sp. A Midsummer Nights Dream 2.1<br />
<b>Violet</b> Viola odorata King Henry V 4.1<br />
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I have a couple of books on Shakespeare's herbs and also John Hall which I'll be taking with me when I go on holiday to France so I can have a leisurely read and pick up some snippets of information for the conference. I may even scatter a few quotes around the garden, and if I ever get round to labelling all the plants I may add the Shakespearian references. I think I need to look further into the history of gardens, gardening and herbals though. Oh dear I feel another section of my library appearing, Simon will not be impressed if I don't have a clear out and make some room for adding more books lol!</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4313587598424168157.post-39282918777271650852009-02-27T13:44:00.002+00:002020-06-15T00:55:10.622+01:00Herbs We Used to Know: Dog's Mercury (Mercurialis perennis)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqoyhC1YGsYGHLD1gv5YDyA0GkBfQWTaV7yNyNAkx-K_84YXq_PfUlvqpV9FAdMe9cnetbr949Aozfj0oNo3-KqdEr4AZz5TygSPndOXwXxVIrWgRm_fGIQjtXMBsC7yiIEnFX7lXsgGaM/s1600/dogs-mercury-crich.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="478" data-original-width="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqoyhC1YGsYGHLD1gv5YDyA0GkBfQWTaV7yNyNAkx-K_84YXq_PfUlvqpV9FAdMe9cnetbr949Aozfj0oNo3-KqdEr4AZz5TygSPndOXwXxVIrWgRm_fGIQjtXMBsC7yiIEnFX7lXsgGaM/s1600/dogs-mercury-crich.jpg" /></a></div>
Dog's Mercury is a native of the British Isles and a member of the Spurge family, it's commonly found in shady woodland areas. The green flowers (see photo below) are tiny and grow along spikes, an interesting thing about this plant is that the male and female flowers grow on separate plants. The dark green leaves are oval and slightly pointed with a rounded 'teeth' edge. Dog's Mercury shouldn't be confused with Annual Mercury (<a href="https://pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Mercurialis+annua" target="_blank"><i>Mercurialis annua</i></a>) sometimes called Garden Mercury which is an edible pot herb which seems to have been confused with Dog's Mercury by the likes of Gerrard and Parkinson and the herbal archivists of their time. <br />
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It's a plant that occurs across Derbyshire, the above photo was taken at Crich Tramway Museum in April 2007. This weekend on a visit to Calke Abbey, I noticed that the Dog's Mercury there was beginning to emerge, which triggered me to post some information on this herb/plant. To date, Crich is the only place I've witnessed just how invasive this plant can be, along with the Ramsons it forms carpets of lush green growth in the spring that seems to smoother out everything else.<br />
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According to Maude Grieve, the juice of the whole plant, freshly collected when in flower, mixed with sugar or with vinegar, is recommended for externally treating warts, and for inflammatory and discharging sores, and also, applied as a poultice, to swellings and to cleanse old sores. Although I wouldn't want to apply it to my hands in the event that I may end up putting them in my mouth and end up ill or dead! <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2-Vzox6_86y8A4R5jdw9XzpXxjxKiR59XAz5RCmndyUDN0Nk1DLYRWEeEe7w-dtiUwrRHqgvHwiR-VcN6G622rZxxt6W639HHu3HpMhytbWKQQHHMTTmiaUYq7WYwZ4l90KIVTvZ2sEW1/s1600/dogs-mercury-flower-crich.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="376" data-original-width="377" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2-Vzox6_86y8A4R5jdw9XzpXxjxKiR59XAz5RCmndyUDN0Nk1DLYRWEeEe7w-dtiUwrRHqgvHwiR-VcN6G622rZxxt6W639HHu3HpMhytbWKQQHHMTTmiaUYq7WYwZ4l90KIVTvZ2sEW1/s1600/dogs-mercury-flower-crich.jpg" /></a></div>
Dog's Mercury is cited in some of the old herbals, but it was abandoned as a medicinal remedy as it was found to be lethal for internal use. Culpeper speaks strongly about the poisonous qualities of Dog's Mercury, and adds, with some contempt: <i>' <span style="color: #7b1fa2;">The common herbals, as Gerarde's and Parkinson's, instead of cautioning their readers against the use of this plant, after some trifling, idle observations upon the qualities of Mercurys in general, dismiss the article without noticing its baneful effects. Other writers, more accurate, have done this; but they have written in Latin, a language not very likely to inform those who stand most in need of this caution.</span>'</i><br />
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Something I did find of interest given my latest herb project to discover native herbs and wild plants to dye with was a snippet in Maud Grieve's "A Modern Herbal" that says when Dog's Mercury is "<span style="color: #7b1fa2;"><i>steeped in water, the leaves and stems of the plant give out a fine blue colour, resembling indigo. This colouring matter is turned red by acids and destroyed by alkalis, but is otherwise permanent, and might prove valuable as a dye, if any means of fixing the colour could be devised. The stems are of a bright metallic blue, like indigo, and those that run into the ground have the most colouring matter</i>.</span>" <br />
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Something to look into and given the abundance of Dog's Mercury around these parts, I won't be without a plentiful supply to experiment with, all I need to do is donne the marigolds and make sure I don't put my fingers in my mouth when I experiment!<br />
<i></i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0