What is a Simple Herbal? The English word “Simple”, composed of two Latin words, Singula plica (a single fold), means “Uniqueness”, whether of material or purpose. The term “Herbal Simple” has been applied to any home remedy consisting of a single ingredient, and that of a plant nature.

The simple were guided in their choice of herbs partly by observing the animals that sought them out for self-healing, and partly by discovering for themselves the sensitive properties of plants, as revealed by their smell and taste; also because of their supposed resemblance to those diseases that nature wanted them to cure.

A physician, noting scurvy (a disease caused by vitamin C deficiency and characterized by spongy and bleeding gums, bleeding under the skin, and weakness) and dropsy (swelling from excessive accumulation of water fluid in serous cells, tissues, or cavities). widespread and dominant diseases would purposefully follow sheep and cattle to see which plants they fed on; and of these simple herbs he composed an excellent drug mixed with sugar and water or honey into a pasty mass suitable for oral administration. What produced the effects against these same unpleasant diseases.

Also, in the same way, others noted that “the dog, if out of condition, would seek certain pastures for a medicine that induces nausea and vomiting or purgative (An agent used to purge the intestines. Sheep and cows, when sick, would devour healing plants (a medicine or therapy that cures disease or relieves pain); an animal suffering from rheumatism would stay in the sunlight for as long as it could; (hence vitamin D) and parasite-infested creatures would wallow in frequency in the dust.

Rather, Herbal Simples seeks to justify its uses on the solid basis of accurate chemical analysis and accurate elemental research. Medicinal herbs have come down to us from the earliest times as having only a traditional value, and as an exercise simply depending on experience or observation only, without using the scientific method or theory, especially. as in medicine.

His selection has been praised only for keen insight and judgment, and for the practice of succeeding centuries. But today, closer analysis in the laboratory and experienced expert testing has resolved the various plants into their component parts and chemically determined the medicinal nature of these parts, both individually and collectively. So the study and practice of healing herbs can now have the rank of an exact science, and can inspire the full confidence of the sick by providing reliable help and succor in their moments of bodily need.

Self-convincing scientific reasons can easily be conclusive for prescribing all of our best-known native herbal medicines. Among them, the elder, parsley, mint and watercress can be taken as familiar examples of this main fact.

Elderberry juice simmered and thickened with sugar, or hot elderberry wine made from the fruit, with raisins, sugar and spices, has long been a popular remedy, this simple herb if taken hot at the time of lying down, for a recent cold or sore. throat. But only recently has chemistry explained that elderberries provide “viburanic acid,” which induces sweating and is especially curative of inflammatory bronchial pain.

Similarly, parsley, in addition to being a favorite marijuana herb and garnish for cold cuts, has long been popular as a tea for inflammation of the mucous membranes, especially of the nose and throat, bladder, or mucous membranes. kidneys; While bruised leaves have been highly praised as a poultice for swellings and open sores. At the same time, a saying about the herb has commonly prevailed that it “brings death to men and salvation to women.” However, until recently it has not been learned that the sweet-smelling plant produces what chemists call “apiol” or parsley-camphor, which, when administered in moderation, exerts a calming influence on the major sensory centers of life. : head. and the spine.

In this way, any feverish irritability of the urinary organs caused by cold or other nervous shock would be relieved in a subordinate way. So also Parsley-Camphor (while it serves, when applied externally, to usefully stimulate wounds that are slow to heal) is especially beneficial for female irregularities.

Peppermint, its strong and great tasting sweet liquor, or its lozenges taken as a sweet, have been popular since the days of our grandmothers for the relief of colic in the intestine or for the stomach pain of flatulent indigestion. But this practice has been obtained simply because the spicy herb was found to diffuse a pleasant aromatic heat within the stomach and intestines, while promoting the expulsion of the wind; whereas now we know that an active principle “menthol” contained in the plant, and that can be extracted from it as camphor oil, possesses to a marked degree antiseptic and sedative properties that are chemically hostile to rotting and putrefaction, and preventive of a person suffering from indigestion.