Interview with Jeremy Ross, L.Ac.

November 30, 2008 at 1:52 am (herbal medicine)
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THE ENERGETICS OF WESTERN HERBS

An interview with Jeremy Ross by Bob Quinn

(Spring 2000)

Bob Quinn: Jeremy, as someone who practices acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine, I have always been struck by the rich theory that I have to draw upon in building Chinese herbal formulas. When I look at Western herbal medicine, it seems there is not a similarly rich theory to draw upon when building a formula. Can you address this issue with some historical perspective?

Jeremy Ross: You’ve pinpointed the basic challenge in herbal medicine: How do you make an herb combination? What are the principles of combination you use? It’s quite true that in Chinese herbal medicine there are precise and clear principles as to how you combine herbs to treat a specific disease. BUT, and this is the fascinating thing that people don’t generally know—there is a rich traditional heritage in the West. The West has its own principles of herb combination, but it has been lost over the last century. In the West you could really go back to the time of the ancient Greeks.

BQ: Could you give us a rough date on where you’re starting?

JR: If you wanted to look at it from the point of development of theories, perhaps we could start with the development of the theory of the four elements. This was proposed by Empedocles who lived about 490-430 BC. He suggested that everything— the whole universe and all the workings of nature— is composed of four elements: earth, air, fire and water. Now this wasn’t a medical theory; it was a general theory. It’s interesting to note that it’s very close to the same time the general theory of the Five Elements was systematized in China by Zou Yen (350-270 BC). It’s important to say that the four elements were principles. There were four principles of transformation for the Greeks and five elements in China.

BQ: Connect the elements then to herbs. How did all this inform the practice of herbal medicine?

JR: In the next progression the Greeks linked what they called the primary qualities with the elements. The primary qualities are hot, cold, moist and dry. They are absolutely basic to the prescription of herbal medicine. This actually goes back to Aristotle about 384-322 BC. He linked these primary qualities with the Four Elements.

BQ: Sounds like Chinese medicine.

JR: It sounds incredibly like Chinese medicine. We’re looking at basically the two aspects of Yin-Yang. We’ve got hot and cold, which is one parameter. Then you have moist and dry which is the second. It’s difficult to know who came first on this one but the Yin-Yang theory in Chinese medicine goes back way before the Five Elements. The idea in all cultures of fire and water is absolutely basic. What we’re looking at now is how that developed into prescription ideas.

BQ: I’ve read that Greek medicine was also based on four humours. Can you explain how that fits?

JR: This is also comparable to Chinese medicine because the humours were like body fluids or essences of the body. They’re very comparable to the Substances of Chinese medicine: Qi, Blood, Jing and Shen. The theory of humours developed around 460-370 BC. One of the founding fathers was Hippocrates. The idea at the time was that the human body was composed of four humours: black bile, yellow bile, blood and phlegm. What was interesting was how these humours were linked to the ideas of hot and cold, moist and dry. Not only was each of the humours linked to one of the Four Elements—for instance, fire was linked to yellow bile, and black bile was linked to earth and so on— each humor had two of the primary qualities. For example, the phlegm humour was linked to the two primary qualities of cold and moist; yellow bile was hot and dry; blood was hot and moist; black bile was cold and dry. These four humours were the basic essences out of which the body was composed.

BQ: If one humour dominated, how did that influence the herbs used?

JR: Since we’re in Seattle we ought to consider the example of the humour of phlegm. Phlegm is cold and moist. Therefore the last thing such a person needs is more foods or more herbs or more climate that are cold and moist. That’s why somebody from Seattle is going to want to go someplace like Arizona where it is hot and dry to balance this whenever they can. In other words, the appropriate herb or food is going to be hot and dry to counterbalance the moist and cold. On the other hand, if yellow bile, which is associated with the element of fire (hot and dry), dominated, then you’d want food, climate and herbs, maybe even a partner, that were cold and moist. What is fascinating is that this led to the idea of temperaments. Temperament here doesn’t necessarily just mean the emotions—but certainly they include that. As an example, yellow bile was associated with the choleric temperament, which is associated with anger. If you went into astrology you would connect it with the planet Mars and its fiery, angry, aggressive, assertive energy. If you’re of the phlegmatic temperament you’re going to be placid, slow, peaceful, pleasant; it’s very similar to the Spleen type in Chinese medicine.

BQ: Could we use the word constitution when we talk about the Greek temperaments?

JR: You could use the word constitution. The temperament is a mix of physical constitution and personality type. The crucial thing for herbal medicine is that it gives an indication of which diseases a person is likely to have, and therefore, which herbs are likely to be good for them. So, the key aspect of herbal medicine classifies not only the person and the disease into hot and cold, moist and dry, but then you have the corresponding classification of the herbs into these same categories. So you pick a hot and dry herb to counter a cold and moist condition. You have to classify both the diseases and the herbs. People don’t realize this has been done in Western herbal medicine.

BQ: The similarity to Chinese medicine is striking. The idea of opposing the disease process with the herbs—cooling herbs used to oppose a hot condition, for instance. It seems obvious to us now that this makes sense, but really it is not at all obvious that that is the way the system would be set up.

JR: Yes, it is not at all obvious. What is fascinating is that the Western herbal classification, so far apart in space from China, although not so far apart in time, developed this same system of hot and cold to classify the diseases and the herbs. Also, certainly in Europe and in China to a lesser degree, moist and dry were used to classify the diseases and the herbs.

BQ: What about the materia medica of this traditional Western medicine? How were they set up?

JR: In ancient Greece there were materia medica written before Dioscorides, who is most frequently quoted. For example, there was Diocles in about the 4th century BC, but only fragments of this remain. Dioscorides is the main man in the first century AD. He was a Greek living in the Roman Empire who served as a doctor with the Roman army. Now the Roman army went everywhere, and wherever it went it had to have herbs to treat various diseases. Dioscorides recorded all this. He didn’t only record it, but he began to classify the herbs in terms of hot-cold and moist-dry. He didn’t do it in a very systematic way, but he did make reference to herbs that affected the four temperaments and used that basic system.

In China, also in the first century AD., there the Ben Cao Jing, the Classic of the Materia Medica, attributed to Shen Nong. What is strange is that you consistently get similar ideas or developments, the Four Elements or the Five Elements and the main materia medica of the Greeks and Romans and Chinese, happening in the same century or within one century of each other. It’s almost too much coincidence.

BQ: Are you saying you suspect there was something moving along trade routes or are you saying there was something more metaphysical happening?

JR: I would say there are various aspects to it. There is the obvious thing. The trade routes have always been the equalizer in herbal medicine since 1500 BC. It’s also very obvious there is some kind of parallel human thinking, partly due, I think, to the nature of human beings to try herbs and create similar concepts. However, there does seem to be some other of link that is difficult to explain. I don’t know if it is metaphysical or not. How can you explain this pulse of energy in the 6th century BC, when the philosophical breakthroughs came in Greece and at the same time in China, and another pulse of energy in the first century AD when the materia medica arose in the West and in China.

BQ: You talked about Dioscorides’ work not being particularly well organized. The Ben Cao Jing had three classes of herbs. This would indicate there was not a simplistic one-to-one correlation, not just a simple translation of concepts from one language to another, but rather a generalized move to systemization without arriving at identical systems.

JR: The first thing to note is that neither Dioscorides nor the original version of the Ben Cao Jing had systematized to the later level, for example, temperature. This came later in both cases. The systemization of diseases with herbs in the West was done by Galen’s time around about 150-200 AD. It was done in China a little bit later; not until about the sixth century AD did one of the annotators and editors of the Ben Cao Jing systematically classify herbs by temperature and taste. So in both Chinese and Western herbal medicine this systemized structure became prevalent later. In the West it was Galen; this was his huge contribution and also his curse as it later turned out. He systematized so thoroughly; diseases and herbs were classified in terms of temperament, moist and dry, hot and cold, organs entered and everything you could possibly think of. Before you could use a herb you had to consider if it was a hot herb for a cold condition, an herb for the phlegmatic temperament and so on.

BQ: That sounds a bit rigid, and it locks out any chance for an empirical use of an herb to find its way into the system. Can you talk a bit about where empiricism fits into this dance?

JR: Yes. I think there are two complementary but opposing threads in herbal medicine, almost like Yin-Yang. One is empiricism. The empiricists will say, regardless whether it’s oral tradition, written tradition or modern clinical research, “We don’t know how it works, we can only tell you that it does work. For instance, use this herb for bronchitis because it works for that. We don’t know why, we don’t care why, we can only tell you that it does.” This is simple and still has use and value.

BQ: And what is the opposing view?

JR: The opposing view is the logical approach that says: “We don’t really want to use herbs unless we know why they work. We don’t want to use herbs unless we classify the diseases and the herbs and can then make a match of herb and disease.” Both approaches have application. The disadvantage of the empirical approach is if you are treating bronchitis, how do you treat all the types of bronchitis with just general bronchitis herbs. If you use a classificatory system you can say, “This person has a low body temperature and bronchitis with white phlegm. Here is a warm herb for cold bronchitis.” This makes it more specific and effective. That’s the strength.

BQ: What do you see as the weakness of the logical approach?

JR: The great weakness is that the medical professions unfortunately always tend to move toward a sort of mental fossilization. They’ve always tended to be terribly conservative and follow the information from the classics. What happened was that two to three centuries after Galen was the fall of Rome. Then Europe suffered a continuous set of invasions from the Goths, the Visigoths, the Vandals, and God knows who else. The population dropped and the economy went down. The only people who were literate were those in the church, and at that time the church was concerned with keeping things stable. It had a rigid mental approach and it was the only seat of learning. So you get the incredible situation where somebody, a young novice, goes to the abbot and says: “Quick, quick, Father Abbot, out there we have sun spots, black spots on the sun.” And the abbot doesn’t even bother to look up from his great big ledger and says: “My dear child, I have read all of Aristotle and nowhere does Aristotle mention sunspots. Please go and change your glasses.” It was rigid tradition. They believed implicitly Aristotle. The medical fraternity implicitly believed Galen. As a result, for 15 centuries after Galen’s death Western herbal medicine ossified. Only when people like Culpeper wanted to simplify things did we begin to break out of that.

BQ: You’ve covered roughly 15 centuries up to Culpeper. How did Culpeper see herbal medicine?

JR: I think the thing to remember about this huge 15 century gap is that each of the different European countries had its own Culpeper, so to speak, in its own language. England had no monopoly on herbal medicine. The contribution of Culpeper was great because he combined at least five different things. First, he simplified the incredibly complicated medicine of the day. He translated it from Latin into English so ordinary people could read and understand.

BQ: A very political move.

JR: It was a very political move. He also wanted to get cheap medicine to ordinary people, which meant that he broke away from the complex formulas that the West had inherited from the Arabs. The Arabs had followed Galenic medicine and embroidered it with a huge pharmacy from all over the world. Culpeper broke away from that. He said, “If we have to have elephant’s tusk and Arabian pearl and Chinese muskrat or whatever it is, this is lunacy. It will cost a fortune, it’s too complicated. We can grow herbs right here in London in our own backyards.”

BQ: Again, that sounds political to me.

JR: Yes. Basically he’s saying: Remove the mystery, remove the complexity, take it out of the hands of a privileged few, make it cheap and available to the ordinary person and understandable by the ordinary person. It was a revolutionary step.

Third, he was the one to translate Galen’s principles into English. His fourth contribution was that he was a very clear and vivid writer. His book is still one of the most clinically useful to this day because he was such a practical man.

The last important contribution was an odd one, and that’s why many of the medical herbalists, naturopaths and medical people shy away from Culpeper to this day. He was also an astrologer. This presents a difficulty for people trying to make herbs scientific. But what’s useful is his astrological descriptions give the energetic characteristic of the herbs, and you don’t need to understand much about astrology to benefit. For example, Culpeper says that rosemary is ruled by the sun. Being ruled by the sun means two things: First, it means the herb warms you, and secondly, it means it has an expansive or centrifugal, outward moving energy that will break through blocks and open the stuck and the contracted. This concept is useful because there are similar concepts in Chinese herbal medicine. Herbs that have an upward direction, a downward direction, an outward or centrifugal direction, an inward or centripetal direction. To take it a bit further, herbs ruled by Jupiter would not necessarily be warming like the sun, but they’d certainly have an expanding outward direction.

BQ: Because it rules expansion?

JR: Yes. The opposing principle would be Saturn. Saturn was seen in Greek mythology to be the planet associated with contraction, rest and the inward or centripetal flow. You would give herbs governed by Saturn to people ruled by Jupiter and vice versa.

BQ: So Saturn and Jupiter are a Yin-Yang pair?

JR: Yes. They are a Yin and Yang pair, and the sun and moon are a Yin and Yang pair. The sun is warming and drying, the moon moistening and cooling. And Venus is the opposite of Mars. So we have this series of complementary opposites which give a fascinating insight into the direction of the herbs.

If we take it into modern biochemistry, going back to the original example of rosemary, two of the important constituents of rosemary are the monoterpene aromatic oils borneol and camphor. These have a stimulating and warming, outward moving effect. They’re partly responsible for rosemary’s circulatory stimulant, antidepressant and warming action. So we have a link between Culpeper’s Western astrology, the Chinese concept of the direction of the energy of the herb and modern phytopharmacy. Culpeper is fascinating, but I think his greatest contribution is his vivid writing. He reached people, then and now.

BQ: Let me jump to North America, because with Culpeper we have reached the time when North America was settled by Europeans. Tell me about the herbal traditions of North America and how they fit into this story. 

JR: The Mayflower landed in 1620. Culpeper’s book was written in 1651 so it wouldn’t have been available, but I think John Gerard’s book was published in 1597 and Parkinson in 1640. There would have been other herbals available then in England. People coming from Germany would have had access to various materia medica. So we’ve got the tradition coming into North America of materia medica based on Galenic principles plus simple materia medica that would have just listed what herbs do.

It is fascinating to see the influence of Culpeper on the classic naturopathic books of America, such as Jethro Kloss’ Back to Eden, written in 1939. If you look at the example of rosemary, you’ll see a whole list of indications that are from Culpeper. Another example is juniper. Culpeper recommends it for cough, shortness of breath, consumption, pains in the belly, cramps and convulsions. So does Jethro Kloss, using almost identical phrasing. I’m not saying that he copied him. He may have had this from a series of people who copied each other. What is fascinating is that this heritage of Culpeper, which he was taking from Dioscorides materia medica and Pliny’s materia medica, again going back to the first century AD, were transmitted from Culpeper to the basic texts in the US. If you look at John Christopher’s writing, you’ll often find his wording parallels Culpeper’s. For example, he recommends juniper to strengthen the brain, the memory and the optic nerve. This is straight out of Culpeper. So this European heritage going back all the way to the Roman and Greek times is being transmitted from Culpeper and similar herbals into the basic American textbooks. I really don’t think many Americans are aware of their links to Greek herbal medicine.

BQ: On this continent there was also the Native American tradition that the pioneers and settlers were encountering. They had their own approach and uses of plants, and they had some unique plants here not listed in any European herbal. What happened as these herbs came into use by the settlers? Could you discuss a few of those herbs?

JR: Yes, I think the American continent made an enormous contribution with the herbs that grow here and the wisdom of the Native Americans in how to use them. There is quite a long list of herbs. You could take the classics like lobelia and goldenseal, but you also have black cohosh, blue cohosh, squaw vine, Culver’s root and so on. The pioneers, when they came from Europe, found herbs that didn’t grow in their places of origin. They got from the Native Americans herbs that were extremely effective, and they incorporated these into the materia medica and into the traditions.

One of the famous herbalists was Samuel Thomson who lived 1789-1843. He was a mischievous soul who loved to experiment when he was young by slipping large amounts of lobelia into the food and drink of friends just to see how long and how much they’d vomit. What is interesting is not just the widening of the materia medica to include the North American herbs, but also the theory of Physiomedicalism, of which Thomson was one of the originators. It was a very basic concept, but very important nonetheless. It included not only a crude concept of Yin-Yang, for instance, he used capsicum to stimulate and lobelia to relax, but also a concept of Qi. This later got rather lost in the history of herbal medicine. The Physiomedicalists called their approach vitalism, and they said the most important thing in the human body was the vital force or energy and the most important thing in treating disease was to restore the vital force or energy. One aspect of this vital force was heat. When people were ill, it was thought to be mainly due to cold. This was Thomson, which is a very interesting comparison with the Shang Han Lun written about 200 AD.

BQ: That’s quite a separation in time.

JR: Yes, but now they are coming back to the concept that the main cause of disease is cold. Therefore, the key principle of treatment is to warm, so the vital energy of the body is increased and will be able then to fix the problem itself. Physiomedicalism unfortunately died out before the theory was fully established.

The later Eclectic movement was more academic, and concerned with looking at herbs in much greater detail, in testing and proving them and looking at each facet of their different actions. King’s Dispensatory by Felter and Lloyd would be an absolutely characteristic example. This is the great contribution of the Eclectics, not so much in working out a new theory of herb combination, but with the extreme thoroughness with which they approached the materia medica. What killed the Eclectic and Physiomedical movements was the development of modern Western pharmacy and Western medicine.

BQ: Germ theory.

JR: Germ theory, and a moving away from the theory of vitalism. People started to see illness as created by alien creatures called germs that must be destroyed. We’re looking at the concept, sadly, of alienation. In comes the concept of the separation of the person from themselves. The disease becomes the germ, which is separate and is treated by medicine that kills the germ, and not by increasing the vital forces. It was a loss of the understanding of the theory of vitalism, which is a lot like that of Qi. The theories of Qi and vital force link people to their environment, other people and themselves. Once that’s lost the whole thing fell into what we’ve got now.

BQ: We’ve been talking about North America. I’d like to backtrack a bit and ask if the new American herbs found their way back to Europe?

JR: Absolutely. I think one thing particularly fascinating was the exchange back and forth across the Atlantic. The European herbals came from Europe in the 17th to America. At some stage the information from Culpeper got incorporated into the Physiomedical texts. Then, during the heyday of the Physiomedicalists and Eclectics, some of them went over to lecture in England. One famous man, Dr. Coffin, went to live in England. He brought concepts of the new materia medica available in America to the herbalists in England, who accepted it with great interest. Later came Wooster Beech. So the concepts of the Physiomedicalists and the concepts of the Eclectics went to England.

BQ: Wooster Beech being the Eclectic.

JR: Wooster Beech is sometimes listed as a Physiomedicalist, but he was actually the president of the Eclectic Association. He was on the border of the two movements. The English herbalists incorporated the Eclectic and Physiomedicalist concepts and the knowledge of the Native American herbs into their own corpus of information. This is why if you look at that certificate over there on my wall it’s absolutely fascinating. The National Institute of Herbalists was founded in England in, I think, 1864. On the coat of arms on the left you’ve got an ancient Egyptian medical professional and on the right you’ve got a Native American medicine man. These are the two integrated aspects of that British National Institute. This was unique to England. There was a special exchange, probably on the basis of language. What is happening now in recent years is the reverse, people from the British National Institute are coming to lecture in America.

BQ: Bringing the knowledge back.

JR: Right. Bringing it back. And sometimes the English surprise the Americans by talking about things like Culver’s root which many Americans have forgotten about. There are fascinating cross-currents.

BQ: It sounds like the Institute helped to keep things alive through this century while we had a dry period here. It’s probably where Dr. Christopher served his greatest purpose along with a few others. There were very few in this country who barely managed to keep herbal medicine going. Was it the same in England?

JR: Yes, exactly the same thing was happening in England. It was the dawn of modern pharmacy and modern Western medicine. And also the increasing tendency toward mechanistic thinking, viewing man, society and even the environment as a big machine. It causes a kind of alienation. The big thing that got lost was the vitalistic theory, as it was called in the West, and in the East was called Qi. In these concepts everything is linked together. What happened, I think, with the National Institute, was that the old principles of herb combination tended to get played down because they were very much trying to impress and be a part of the modern medical and modern scientific world. So they tended to go down the route of, “We do our diagnosis by Western medicine and we do our treatment in terms of what we know of phytopharmacy.” Unfortunately in doing that what tended to happen was the loss of the contact with the vitalistic theory on the one hand and on the other hand, the loss of the contact with the Galenic principles, hot and cold moist and dry and so on.

BQ: What do you think turned things around?

JR: The big boost came when people in Europe started to get interested in acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine about thirty years ago. It became apparent that Chinese herbalists were making choices of which herbs to use not based on Western medicine. They did not do their diagnosis based on Western medicine, and their herbs are not classified in terms of biochemistry. Their herbs are classified in terms of hot-cold, organs entered and so on, and so are the diseases. You can match the herb to the disease. They’re not using phytopharmacy in classifying herbs.

BQ: So, you feel that the introduction of Chinese herbal medicine into the West has had an impact on the Western herbalists.

JR: Yes, very definitely. What people began to think was that if we can do this with Chinese herbs, why can’t we do this with Western herbs? And in fact maybe this classification already exists? Suddenly these people start noticing that Empedocles had a four element classification, and Aristotle was classifying in terms of hot and cold parameters, moist and dry, like Yin-Yang. Then they noticed that Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine, was classifying people in terms of the four humours. Then they noticed that Galen classified diseases and herbs in terms of the four temperaments, the four humours, the four elements, according to different parts of the body, according to different action, according to hot-cold, moist-dry and more than that he was classifying into 9 grades or degrees of temperature. It was very sophisticated. This lasted for centuries. But with the dawn of modern medicine it tended to get lost. We rediscovered it, I think, mainly through the impetus of Chinese medicine. So now we have a situation where we have three parallel traditions. One is the Chinese, the other is the Western herbal energetics tradition, which is staggeringly similar to the Chinese, and third the equally valuable Western biochemical and phytopharmacological tradition. I think the challenge now is to integrate the three into a coherent scheme.

BQ: So we’re arriving now at a positive use of the science which we had discussed before as having created a problem by disrupting the flow of an energetic understanding. Now you’re talking about science informing in a positive way our practice of herbal medicine. Clarify that for me.

JR: Yes. I used to be a research scientist in plant physiology. While I did the research I became fascinated by the unity I was seeing throughout biology. I was interested in seeing unifying theories developing in biology. There is no paradox in using scientific material, providing you use it in a flexible way. Believing in science doesn’t mean you can’t believe in Qi. They’re not mutually exclusive.

The challenge for science is to use this integrative approach within modern medicine. The integrative approach is already in modern physics, as shown in Fritjof Capra’s The Tao of Physics. It’s already in mathematics, in biology, certainly in ecology. The usually conservative, resistant, backward field, sorry to say, has been medicine. Medicine tends to follow the rules laid down hundreds of years ago. Since the time when Aristotle’s and Galen’s word became law, medics have acted that way. Now we have the integrative ideas of modern physics, modern ecology and Qi theory, or in Western terms vitalistic theory, invading and permeating modern medicine. It is no longer so separatist, alienating. It’s no longer patient vs bugs. You know, “Kill the bugs!” like aliens in sci-fi movies. Medicine is beginning to understand it is from within the patient that the disease originates. Yes, there are environmental factors, but until you support the vital energy, the Qi, and reduce your concepts about killing the bugs, no matter what the cost to the patient’s constitution, medicine won’t change. But it is changing, and I think one of the important contributions of Chinese medicine is to bring this to the knowledge of Western doctors, who strangely will accept this coming from Chinese medicine, but they won’t accept this coming from their own Western heritage from Aristotle, Hippocrates and Galen.

BQ: That’s an interesting point. Medical doctors take a Hippocratic oath but Greek notions of humours are archaic to them.

JR: It’s almost like the classic phrase in the Bible that a prophet is not known in his own land or a child trying to give some information to the parents. There’s some kind of tension in this. I think that Chinese medicine has been some kind of Trojan horse through which the ancient Western traditions are coming back into medicine, slowly to be integrated not only into herbalism but also into their own Western medicine which was founded on these philosophies in the beginning.

BQ: Yin-Yang theory was not supplanted when Five Elements or Six Stages arrived. The theories found a way to coexist. You can think one way for one patient and another way for the next patient. Science knocked out the herbal medicine of the day. Now it seems like we’re learning something from the Chinese about avoiding either-or thinking.

JR: I think there are two things here. First, what you say is true, and secondly, there’s something else coming from this. Whereas the Chinese can use Six Stages, or Five Elements or Extra Meridians as alternatives, maybe we can go a step further. If we can make, and this is very Western concept, a unified field theory of medicine, these alternative concepts can be integrated together. This is for the future. I always wanted to do this. I always wanted to see the unity in this, bring it forward, and in a flexible but empirical way, try to make some kind of unified theory. We can keep a balance between choosing this theory this time and the next time another, and we can also try to integrate the modern biochemistry with the Chinese energetics and the Western herbal energetics. I think this can be done in a new flexible way. I think this is absolutely fascinating for the future.

JEREMY ROSS practices in Seattle where he is writing a new book on western herbology from a TCM perspective.

 

 

 

 

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Oats – The Humble Healer

November 30, 2008 at 1:40 am (herbal medicine)
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Oats – The Humble Healer

 

A few months ago in a column about making herbal soup stock I briefly mentioned oat straw (Avena sativa) as one of my regular and favorite ingredients. I want to return to this underappreciated herb and give it its just due, a column all its own. For those who have the patience to allow oats in its various forms the necessary time to work its magic, there is a healing payoff at the end of the road.

 

The average herb consumer tends to be on the prowl for the expensive and exotic herbal superstars like Asian ginseng, looking for a quick fix or a miracle, but it is a mistake to overlook the benefits of the common plants around us here in the Northwest. They too hold significant healing virtue. Ubiquity is not synonymous with lesser quality. Right here in the Damascus area a number of organic herb farms harvest milky white oat tops (the best this plant has to offer as far as I am concerned) and oat straw (the more pedestrian, but still valuable, part of the plant—and least expensive).

 

Avena sativa has deep roots that enable it to draw on trace and macro-minerals that have been leached into the subsoil. In the 1930’s and 40’s Dr. Weston Price traveled to remote corners of the globe to study the dietary habits of “primitive” peoples who enjoyed superior health and found that they consumed about four times the minerals that the American diet of that day supplied. Since then our soil has become yet more depleted—in other words, we are well advised to seek out mineral-rich foods. In the case of oats, these minerals are thought to be of specific benefit to the nervous and hormonal systems and skin. For this reason when a Western-style herbalist writes a formula for a client who is trying to quit smoking, often the key herb will be oat straw or oat tops). Avena has a grounding, solidifying nature that is helpful in dealing with the stress of nicotine withdrawal. Beyond helping with addiction treatment, it can help with stress in general, a modern malady to which we almost all succumb. Consider the fast pace of life for the average American and all the concomitant pressures: many people have two jobs, financial stress, family and friends in poor health who need care, lack of true down time (when they get home from work, they start being a mom or a dad—not quite a restful situation, but admittedly not without its rewards), and so on. You get the picture—in fact, you are likely living the picture. Getting oats (oat tops or straw tea) into your life is something you might consider.

 

When people hear “oats” they think of Quaker oatmeal and breakfast. This is a good food of course with its own documented health benefits for lowering blood lipid levels, but I am not talking here about the mature grain that is used to make our oatmeal, but rather the immature tops in the milky stage. If left on the plant, these tops will become the mature grain, but if you pick them in the immature stage you have a premier (but subtle) medicine. And after the harvest of the tops, the rest of the plant can be sold as oat straw, also a good healer.

 

In 1998 when I graduated from acupuncture college I had a master’s degree in one hand, but the hand was shaking from the exhaustion I was suffering. Going back to school in your 40’s is no picnic, but add on divorce and a mother with cancer and you have your hands full. I credit a few herbs and foods with my recovery: oat (both straw and fresh milky tops) and turtle shell (yeah, real turtles). I went to a local farm at harvest time and bought three or so pounds of the milky oat tops as fresh as one could imagine (I watched the workers harvest them for me). Right home with me they went, where I threw them into the Cuisinart with vodka and a little water. When they were blended into a slurry, I put them in a big jar. Every day I shook the jar a few times whenever I passed it in the kitchen. In three weeks I strained it through cheesecloth and started to take a few teaspoons of the liquid every day. In addition I was using oatstraw tea in my cooking. Slowly my energy returned. This is how Avena works—patiently rebuilding the foundation of our nervous system.

 

Oat has worked its way into our language. The expressions “feeling your oats” and “sowing your wild oats” both indicate a connection to reproductive health and a feeling of strong vital energy. Indeed, for hundreds of years this idea has been promoted. Oat is not an aphrodisiac though, at least not in the usual immediate sense; it helps in this department through the rebuilding of the nerve force (to use an archaic medical term). Gradually energy increases and with it the sexual appetite.

 

One easy and effective way to use Avena is to simply make a strong oat straw tea—a good handful of dried herb to a pint of water. This can be used instead of water when making soup, oatmeal, rice and other foods. Oat straw tea has a bland taste that offends no one. You can also make a whole pot of this tea and strain into your bathtub. This is an old treatment for sore low back, dry skin, bladder spasms, intestinal distress, and nervous exhaustion. Stay in the water at least twenty minutes. Again, one should not expect miracles when adopting these ideas. It takes time to ruin your health, and one has to be willing to invest a little time in the rebuilding process.

 

*None of the information in this column should be understood to be a substitute for professional medical advice. Readers are encouraged to discuss their health concerns with appropriate medical providers.

 

Bob Quinn practices acupuncture, Sotai, Thai massage and herbal medicine in Sandy at Schoolhouse Natural Medicine.

 

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The Lowly Burdock

November 30, 2008 at 1:38 am (herbal medicine)
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The Lowly Burdock

 

A wise man once suggested to me that I look closely at my assumptions. Often underneath an assumption, if you probe carefully, you find that your foundation is on shaky ground, rather like the Biblical admonition to not build on shifting sand.

 

For instance, sticking to the topic at hand, namely herbal medicine, we could assume a “nuisance” plant like burdock, is just that—a nuisance—and nothing more. After all, the burs stick to one’s clothing, to pet fur and are a total hassle to remove. And, acting on this nuisance assumption, we could remove the burdock from our land (good luck), not aware that in so doing we are destroying a powerful plant medicine ally and a culinary treat. Better to rethink this assumption (and perhaps many others), because this humble, bur-laden plant is one you might want to keep around.

 

Strictly speaking burdock is not a native Northwest plant; it is indigenous to Europe and Asia but now naturalized on every continent. We seem to have entered an area of globalism not only in international trade but in botany as well. Like it or not, plants are moving all around the world just as people and industrial products do. The burs of burdock are really an ingenious system for spreading seeds far and wide; I am endlessly fascinated by the creativity of nature in this regard. Even if we wanted to keep plants like this away from North America, there would be no chance of success against these burs and the tiny seeds they contain. They would arrive here in the pant cuffs of some visitor from Asia or Europe. Once they’re here, they’re here for good.

 

The seeds, stalks, roots, and leaves of burdock (Arctium lappa) are appreciated as healing medicines and valuable foods in Japan, China, and Europe. Native Americans also quickly picked up on the value of this plant once it was introduced into North America. The Japanese and French particularly have included the roots in their cuisine. Burdock has a long taproot that is quite a challenge to dig, but well worth the effort; the roots are quite tasty in stir-fried dishes—sort of a bit like a carrot but earthier and less sweet. They are also great is soups and stews. Luckily these days you can save yourself the laborious digging since most supermarket produce departments now sell burdock—they might also call it gobo, which is the Japanese name.

 

Let me take a few steps back for the benefit of those unfamiliar with this plant. Burdock has large leaves that are often confused for rhubarb. Its burs are about a half-inch in diameter and were supposedly the inspiration for Velcro. This is easy to believe when trying to remove them from socks decorated with burs after a walk through the fields; they are inspiringly tenacious in their ability to cling to clothing (and long hair dogs). Burdock can grow as well next to the barn as in the cracks in a city sidewalk. Many abandoned lots in Portland host giant volunteer burdock gardens.

 

Any plant used for a few thousand years will have likely developed a wide variety of uses, and in this regard burdock is no exception. Although it is a very safe and mild medicine (it is a food after all), it is nonetheless effective over time. The various parts of the plant have been used to treat numerous conditions, including swelling of the prostate, fatigue, lymphatic congestion, uterine prolapse, faulty memory, and diseases of the skin. I have used it often to good effect for eczema. The root can be sliced into thin rounds that are rubbed directly on the inflamed areas. The cool, mucilaginous nature of the root brings quick relief; in addition a strong tea of the root is taken in these cases. It can help as well with boils, in which case poultices of the bruised leaves are applied topically while the root tea is taken internally.

 

In traditional Chinese medicine it is the seed more than the root that is commonly used. Chinese herbalists use the seed primarily in formulas for sore throat. In Western medicine the seeds are more often used to break up urinary calculi (stones). While these two uses are clearly medicinal, in Korea we find them roasting the seeds and using them as a daily pleasure drink, much like the European practice of roasting chicory roots as a coffee substitute. The stalks have also been used as food and medicine. They were seen as a substance for increasing one’s sexual vigor (funny how people are always keen on this sort of use for plants). The leaves are bruised and mixed with egg whites to make a topical burn remedy. With aloe vera and bedstraw around I have never tried burdock on a burn but hope to one day—not that I am wishing a burn on a neighbor, close friend, or myself.

 

The best time to dig the roots is at the end of the first season, but they can still be dug in the early spring of the second year. They can easily surpass a foot in length. The seed can be harvested in the fall as well. Cleaning the burs away from the seeds is a tricky affair, and you have to be careful that absolutely all of the bur slivers are gone before ingesting the seeds; getting one of these slivers stuck in the tongue is unpleasant and can take days to work its way back out. The roots do not store well, mostly because of their high oil content, so they are best eaten fresh or made into a tincture. Brandy works nicely in this regard; it pulls out the sweet and the bitter flavors in a pleasant way.

 

This flu season in which we find ourselves is an especially good time to be eating burdock root dishes. Its gentle building, restoring actions can help strengthen the ability to fight off the bug. Try adding it to miso soup (or any soup really) or your favorite veggie recipe. Other than fussy eaters, who are impossible to please anyway, you will get no complaints. If the French appreciate it in their cuisine, you know it must be good eating.

 

*None of the information in this column should be understood to be a substitute for professional medical advice. Readers are encouraged to discuss their health concerns with appropriate medical providers.

 

Bob Quinn practices acupuncture, Thai massage, Sotai, and herbal medicine in Sandy at Schoolhouse Natural Medicine.

 

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Black Walnut

November 30, 2008 at 1:36 am (herbal medicine)
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Black Walnut

 

Going to the home of friends to watch the vice-presidential debate in October I noticed they had had the big, old walnut tree in front of their house removed. Much of the wood lay at curbside with a “walnut free” sign on it. I quickly took a few of the smaller pieces, still quite heavy, for future carving projects and left the larger two-feet-across pieces for more industrious souls. A shame always to see such old trees go, but it was diseased; half of it had broken off and had fallen across a major street in Portland stopping traffic for a few hours.

 

When I first saw the wood my mind went back to my first herb teacher, the late Dr. John Christopher. He had many stories of walnut medicine, one in particular that he liked to tell from his days serving in World War II. In fact if I recall correctly, it was a walnut success story that created enough of an open mind in his superiors that he became the first military herbalist.

 

Dr. Christopher was an objector to war but gladly served in the medical corps. A young private in his unit had a terrible fungal condition on his scalp that managed to resist all available treatments. Dr. Christopher had experience from his herbal practice using black walnut hulls to treat similar cases. He spoke up and his superiors, frustrated by their own lack of success, gave him just a week to treat the soldier. Normally one needs more than a week to properly prepare the tincture, and skin conditions are notoriously slow to change, but believing in the power of nature to heal and glad for the opportunity, Dr. Christopher accepted the conditions and set about his plan. He gathered walnut hulls from a nearby black walnut tree (luckily it was just the right time of year) and used just one day in making the tincture instead of his normal two to three weeks. He shook the jar with the alcohol and hulls vigorously throughout the day. He prayed that it was enough time for the healing virtue to be picked up by the solvent. Every hour he had the GI apply the tincture liberally to a bandage covering his scalp. At the appointed hour when they removed the bandage a week later beautiful new skin was visible; it was clear the walnut hull tincture was a foe the fungus could not outwit. After that he was allowed to use other herbs to treat various complaints the soldiers had.

 

I am licensed to practice Chinese herbal medicine even though I have many more years (almost 30 now) invested in the study of our Western herbs. Such is the regulatory logic of our society. The Chinese also recognized in walnut something special, although they were talking about different species from Dr. Christopher’s black walnut (Juglans nigra). Instead of the hulls they focused on the actual nutmeat. We eat so many walnuts around holiday time in the U.S. it might surprise many that someone sees medicine where we see food. Although I wrote it in my last column, it bears repeating: The line separating food and medicine is ambiguous at best. Garlic is medicine, ginger is medicine, raw milk is medicine, eggs are medicine, broth is medicine, and so on. What does traditional Chinese medicine have to say about walnuts? They classify them as yang tonics. What this means in simplest terms is that eating walnuts will strengthen and warm the metabolism. Most of the Chinese aphrodisiacs, for instance, are yang tonics, but walnuts are not much noted in this regard (darn it, and they taste so good).

 

Back to the hulls and the Western insights. In recent years many books have appeared in the natural living sections of bookstores warning that parasites might be the explanation for many of our puzzling modern health problems. Whether there is merit to this view is another discussion; I mention it here because in all these books one sees tincture of black walnut hulls as one of the preferred treatment strategies for parasites. Some of these authors insist one must use the green hulls only, but this is not the tradition. Old blackened hulls have always been seen to work just fine. Dr. Christopher preferred them, and would also use the leaves at other times of year when the hulls were unavailable.

 

Amphoteric is a word no longer in vogue in medicine. Modern Western pharmaceuticals, being pure compounds, have an action in the body that is much more focused than herbs. Even a biochemically simple herb will possess over a hundred distinct constituents. The meaning of amphoteric action is akin to a chemical paradox. Dr. Christopher called amphoteric herbs thinking herbs. Black walnut hulls treat both diarrhea and constipation, so we say they are amphoteric. But how can that be? Don’t we need a different medicine for each condition? It only makes sense. Well, there certainly are herbs that treat one condition but not the other, but in the case of walnut hulls we have an amphoteric medicine. It does both nicely. In Chinese and Western herbal medicine there are numerous types of diarrhea that are differentiated. The type of diarrhea that black walnut hulls would help with would be due to some type of infection. (Traditional Chinese medicine actually does not talk about infection, which is a modern biomedical concept; instead they speak of a hot type of diarrhea.) This makes sense given black walnut’s antibacterial, antiparasitic, and antifungal actions.

 

Before concluding I want to mention briefly another use of black walnut hull tincture. Dr. Christopher often chose this herbal remedy in cases of low functioning thyroid, a common problem in recent decades, particularly in females. In the South this is one of the traditional remedies for goiter, another thyroid condition, and, indeed, black walnut is a source of iodine (garlic is another, but nothing beats any of the seaweeds).

 

So, there you have it. When cracking open walnuts and enjoying the delicious meats, know that you are participating in the finest herbal traditions of East and West. And perhaps now you’ll look at that neighborhood walnut tree with newfound respect.

 

*None of the information in this column should be understood to be a substitute for professional medical advice. Readers are encouraged to discuss their health concerns with appropriate medical providers.

 

Bob Quinn practices acupuncture, Thai massage and herbal medicine in Sandy at Schoolhouse Natural Medicine.

 

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Seaweed: The Original Mineral Supplement

November 29, 2008 at 4:33 pm (herbal medicine)
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Sea Vegetables – The Traditional Mineral Supplement

by Bob Quinn, L.Ac., DAOM

 

In the 1930’s and 40’s a brilliant nutritional pioneer, Dr. Weston Price, visited diverse native groups around the globe to try to find the common dietary thread connecting their diets—diets that were supporting populations that enjoyed a level of health we in the modern day can only dream about. Price, a Cleveland area dentist, had launched his project out of concern for the rapidly deteriorating health of his patients, particularly the young.  The insights in his book, Diet and Physical Degeneration, are far-ranging and deserve a thorough reading. In this article I look at his work on minerals, but it should be noted that his investigations turned up other important common factors in these diets that are beyond the scope of our discussion here.

 

Price discovered upon analysis of the foods consumed by these native groups that they were found to contain at least four times and up to ten times the macro-mineral content of the standard diet of the day in America. Linger there for a moment with that number. What kind of house can you build if you have only a quarter of the necessary materials? Remember this was in the 1930’s and 40s, and the soils in which our food is grown have since then been further depleted of their minerals, and we have grown used to the consumption of highly processed foods. The very processing that makes foods fast and convenient to prepare devitalizes them and reduces their mineral content. We are in sad shape in North America if these native diets are taken as a measure of what is needed to sustain health, but I believe that to be the unfortunate truth of the matter.

 

If Dr. Price had known to analyze the trace mineral levels, I suspect he would have found a similar story. Only in relatively recent years has information about the key role of trace elements come into focus in the scientific community. Despite the exceedingly small amounts of these elements that our bodies require, they are nonetheless crucial for health. Many serve as key catalysts in essential processes in our bodies. When we deplete these trace elements in our soil, the plants growing there are weaker and susceptible to disease. It is no different in our bodies.

 

For those who, upon hearing this, try to find solace in the fact that they eat organically grown foods, I have bad news. According to the USDA charts found in Paul Bergner’s The Healing Power of Minerals, commercially grown foods in the 1960s had a significantly higher mineral content compared to organic produce of the early 1990s. And both pale in comparison to the mineral content of foods from the 1930s. Not a pretty picture. Clearly, simply resorting to an all-organic diet is not going to provide minerals in sufficient quantities to match the native diets that Dr. Price researched.

 

If insufficient minerals are in the soil, where can we go to find adequate amounts for our health maintenance? Dr. Price noted the great efforts natives in the Andes Mountains made to obtain seaweed and other treasures of the sea, a sea that was two hundred miles away.  The second group he visited lived on small islands off the coast of Scotland, and their diet was built around oats, cod, and other seafoods, including sea vegetables. What was it that these native groups recognized in these foods? In a word: Minerals (They have other valuable qualities as well, but it is beyond the scope of this article to explore them.). The most nutritious land plants grown in the very best soil are all quite mineral-deficient if we use sea vegetables as the standard. All the commonly consumed sea vegetables are virtual treasure troves of mineral nutrition.

 

It is worthy of at least a brief mention here that Dr. Price observed significant damage from the inclusion of even small amounts of modern foods, what he called the displacing foods of modern commerce, in the native diets he studied. If even slightly less than a fifth of the food came from modern sources (he was referring to commercial oils, white flour, white sugar), the children born to those people would have diminished health evidenced as crowded teeth, narrower faces, cavities, less energy and so on. He took nearly 20, 000 pictures on his journeys and the difference between the children on a pure native diet and those with partial inclusion of modern foods is clear for anyone to see. So, it is important not only to include sea vegetables in the diet, but to also eliminate, or at least to severely limit, the consumption of these displacing foods of modern commerce.

 

The Japanese have the only modern diet that has retained a significant role for seaweed in its cuisine. Statistics tell us that they are doing something right—the Japanese live longer than any other modern people, and this despite a highly stressful work life that undoubtedly has negative health consequences.  Some researchers have speculated that it is perhaps the greater soy consumption in Japan that explains their longevity, but a serious look at Price’s work leads one to suspect it is more likely the added minerals and other nutritional factors in the seaweed and other seafoods.

 

How much seaweed should one consume? According to Dr. Ryan Drum, a noted seaweed expert in the Western herbal community, a good ballpark number is 3-5 grams per day of dried seaweed. This is roughly a kilogram per year per person. Eating a variety of seaweeds is the ideal. However, if one is not accustomed to having sea vegetables in the diet, it is advised to start with just a gram a day for a time before slowly increasing it. With its high iodine content sea vegetables generally have a positive impact on thyroid function, but it is best to proceed with caution.  If negative changes are noted, the seaweed consumption should be discontinued.

 

Because of the epidemic of hypothyroidism in modern life, particularly among middle-aged women, I thought I might mention one brown algae, Fucus vesiculosus (common name: bladderwrack), known to have a positive impact on the thyroid. This seaweed grows abundantly throughout the temperate zones and can be easily harvested off the rocks where it attaches itself. It is easily identified through its small, heart-shaped bladders. These bladders contain a mucilaginous substance that is high in essential fatty acids. Although it would be a terrible diet, humans can exist for a long time on nothing but dried Fucus and water. Fucus contains a compound called DIT (di-iodotyrosine or iodogogoric acid)) that our bodies can use to easily construct a T4 molecule; no other sea vegetable is known to contain this substance. Unfortunately, bladderwrack is not especially tasty, even for die-hard seaweed fans, so that taking it in capsules becomes the recommended route for hypothyroid patients. A number of companies produce Fucus capsules and most natural food stores carry them. I generally start people at 1 gram per day of the dried bladderwrack and move it slowly up to 3 grams per day. If someone has been on thyroid hormone medication for a long time, you will not likely wean them off, but if you do, they will require daily use of Fucus just as they do their medicine. As with any supplement or special food, if there are adverse reactions, the patient should be advised to discontinue use immediately. It is a food and very safe, but idiosyncratic reactions are always possible.

 

When harvesting one’s own seaweed, a practice I highly recommend, a few key pointers are worth mentioning: First, find out if there is a nearby municipal sewage outfall or septic system. Seaweeds are like thirsty sponges for any ambient minerals that pass by their neighborhood, and whether or not the substances picked up are healthy for humans is not a concern of theirs. Be clear: People have died from eating contaminated sea vegetables. Second, do not harvest plants washed up on a sandy beach; it is far better to harvest from the rocks at water’s edge. It is impossible to remove all the sand that the mucilaginous coating on the seaweed will pick up from the beach. A certain broken tooth awaits any who avoid this warning. Third, do not rinse your harvest in fresh water; seawater rinsing is better. Fourth, dry the seaweed as soon after harvest as possible and then seal it in moisture-proof containers. Fifth, never put your harvest in plastic trash bags. These bags are coated with a toxic chemical that ensures anything put in them will become de facto rubbish. Instead, use plastic produce bags from the supermarket or a food-grade plastic bucket.

 

For many modern people including seaweed in the diet is an unpalatable option. They should be reminded that tastes do change and encouraged to start with just a small amount; some sea vegetables have a stronger taste than others.  For those who are hopelessly fussy about their food, the option of using powdered seaweed in capsules should be explored. Toasted nori is usually an easy stretch for the typical North American palate. Many Americans have an easy time starting with dulse (Palmaria palmata), a red algae with a mild and quite agreeable flavor.  (Irish cattle and horses have been observed eating dulse from the rocks on beaches.) It does not need to be cooked and is easily cut with scissors into salads.

 

A brief personal story about dulse might be of interest here. In 1977 I hitchhiked around Ireland for a month while on semester break from university in Germany. In one tiny Irish coastal community I observed children on their bicycles going into a corner grocery and emerging with little paper sacks filled with paper-thin maroonish-purple strips that they greedily pushed into their mouths. I wandered into the store to see what they were eating, imagining I would find a homegrown type of candy. Instead I discovered they were eating dulse. I was astounded that nutritious seaweed had replaced candy for these children. The bags were selling for five pence, so I bought one and thus started my love affair with this delicious sea vegetable. As it turns out elderly men in this community harvested and dried the dulse and sold it as a way of making a little money.

 

My final word is to not underestimate what improvements in health are possible for your patients if you help them increase their intake of minerals by eating sea vegetables regularly. Practitioners should realize though that the health benefits from seaweed consumption do not show up overnight. We need to counsel our clients to have patience as their bodies learn to utilize the added nutrition. It will be worth the wait.

 

This article was published in the North American Journal of Oriental Medicine.

 

Bob Quinn practices meridian therapy, herbal medicine, Sotai, and Thai massage in Portland, OR and supervises in the clinic of the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine.

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The Devil in the NW Woods

November 29, 2008 at 5:13 am (herbal medicine)
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By Bob Quinn

It is important in herbal medicine, and in life in general, to look beyond first impressions. Some plants are immediately attractive to the eye and/or nose. Lemon balm and sage come to mind as examples of plants that win one over immediately. Other plants are more the beast than the beauty. But like the story of The Beauty and the Beast in which the beast has a unique virtue to offer, if we go beyond first impressions with plants we often find a treasure of healing virtue. Devil’s club (Oplopanax horridum) is in this category.

Anyone who has walked in the Northwest woods has likely encountered this unique plant. Devil’s club is a deciduous understory shrub with large maple-like leaves. From the ground up to the leaves the plant is covered with nearly inch-long spines. These spines are capable of causing severe skin irritation, so one has to approach the plant with a measure of respect. One immediately understands where the species name horridus comes from. It looks horrid and horrible.

Along the line of looking beyond first impressions I can relate one encounter with devil’s club. As I processed one Oplopanax harvest at home cutting the roots into smaller pieces, I ripped open the top of my left index finger. It was extraordinarily painful for such a tiny cut and bled like the dickens. At the time I was in acupuncture college, and this injury presented a problem. In the Japanese style I practice the left index finger is the preferred digit for locating acupuncture points. I feared I would lose sensitivity in this finger from the scarring and that it would hamper my career. As it turns out, just the opposite occurred. The tip of that finger is now much more sensitive than it had been. I consider this a sort of backhanded gift of devil’s club.

In the spring of 1988 I undertook a half-year apprenticeship with wildcrafter Howie Brounstein. Howie’s opinion was that devil’s club is our only true Northwest tonic. To the Chinese, tonic herbs over time strengthen and rebuild a depleted body, whether weakened by old age or illness. The changes are subtle—after a few weeks one notices that one is sleeping more soundly and waking more rested. Asian ginseng (Panax ginseng) is the classic example of a tonic substance. Indeed its Latin genus name, Panax, comes from the same root as our word panacea, which means “cure all”. We see this same panax in Oplopanax, indicating that devil’s club too is seen as having broad restorative powers.

I once had an herb instructor with a curious teaching technique. She would pass around unlabeled bottles of the liquid extract of a given herb and instruct everyone to take just a few drops on the tongue and then sit quietly with the impressions that came. When she did this with devil’s club, the unanimity of response was astounding. Everyone in the room perceived the herb as warrior-like, powerful, protective, shielding and so on. As it happens these are apt descriptions for some of the traditional uses of Oplopanax. For the native groups in the growing range of devil’s club this plant was their most significant green ally. Ethnobotanists have catalogued some 34 traditional uses for this plant. Some of these uses were medical and some were spiritual. As many in the classroom tasting experiment perceived, devil’s club was seen as a strong protector against witches, spiritual entities and epidemics.

What are the traditional uses for which there is some scientific substantiation? Research has revealed devil’s club’s antifungal, antibacterial, antimycobacterial and antiviral properties. It is a respiratory stimulant and expectorant, helpful in eczema and worth considering in various types of autoimmune disease such as rheumatoid arthritis. It is worth noting that many medical authorities suspect a strong autoimmune component in our epidemic of type II diabetes, which is another condition for which devil’s club can often help. It is sad to realize that the same native groups that valued the use of devil’s club are being hard-hit by TB and diabetes, two diseases for which this plant can offer some assistance.

Devil’s club is a powerful plant. Do not self-treat for any of the conditions discussed in this piece; they are all serious diseases. My goal here is educational, not medical. When you next pass by this plant on the hiking trail I hope you will see it with new eyes and appreciate the important role it played in the lives of Northwest Native American tribes.

*None of the information in this column should be understood to be a substitute for professional medical advice. Readers are encouraged to discuss their health concerns with appropriate medical providers.

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