Guest guest Posted April 26, 2004 Report Share Posted April 26, 2004 ECHINACEA Although Echinacea is now very well-known, it is essentially a new remedy. Many herbs with as powerful effects as Echinacea have been known throughout the world for centuries, but this wonderful remedy came into prominence during the last century with the Eclectic school and cannot be found in the ancient herbals. Except where noted, the information in this newsletter comes from an excellent little book, Echinacea Exalted... See bibliography, There are several species in the genus Echinacea, and many of them are used medicinally, although the pallida is also used, sometimes being considered a sub-species of the angustifolia. The purpurea has also been frequently used medicinally. We will mention other species in the section on Related Plants; the above are the commonest medicinal species. The American Indians of the Great Plains and adjacent areas used Echinacea as a plant for many ailments. In addition to the medicinal uses of the Indians, the dried flowerheads were used by tribes of the Missouri River region--specifically, the Meskwaki and Kiowa--as hair combs. Children of the Pawnee tribe used the dried flower stalks for a game in which two stalks were whirled around one another. Medicinally, Echinacea seems to have been one of the foremost medicinal plants for the American Indians, although our history of it is fragmented, because information has only been collected since the Indians were driven onto reservations. However, Gilmore in his Uses of Plants by the Indians of the Missouri River Region said, " Echinacea seems to have been used as a remedy for more ailments than any other plant. " The Cheyenne used the leaves and roots as a tea for sore throats, gums, and mouth, also chewing the roots for the same ailments. An infusion of the root was rubbed on sore necks. The Crows used the fresh root for toothache pain. The Comanches used the root for toothache and sore throats. A juice from the root was used for colds and colic. The Meskwaki used the root tea for stomach cramps. They also used the root tea for " fits " in combination with other herbs. Montana Indians chewed the flower--fresh or dry--to increase saliva flow. They also used the herb externally as a snake bite remedy, as did the Sioux, who used the fresh root to treat hydrophobia and septic conditions. The Omaha Poncas used Echinacea as a basic herb for a variety of ailments. The fresh root was placed on toothaches until the pain subsided. It was used on enlarged glands--like mumps. A smoke fumigant of Echinacea was used to treat headaches, snakebite, stings, poisonous conditions and distemper in horses. Externally the juice of the root was used to bathe burns and to make the intense heat of the sweat house more bearable. Jugglers were said to have bathed their arms and hands in the juice of the plant so that they could take a piece of meat from a boiling pot with their bare hands without experiencing pain. A Winnebago Indian told Gilmore that he used the plant to make his mouth insensible to heat so that he could take a live coal in his mouth for show. The Omaha-Ponca used the plant as an eye wash. The Kiowa chewed the ground root and slowly swallowed the juice for coughs and sore throats. It has been reported that the Indians used Echinacea for more than one hundred types of cancer. The Oglaga Dakota used the root internally for toothache and bad colds. It was also used for mumps, measles, rheumatism, arthritis and smallpox. It was used by the Delaware for advanced venereal disease. The Choctaw chewed the root for bad colds accompanied by dyspepsia. Considering its widespread use by the Indians, we will not be surprised to learn the Echinacea became a popular herb among the early settlers. Echinacea species were known by the common names Indian head, scurvy root, Black Sampson, niggerhead, comb flower, hedgehog, red sunflower, and purple coneflower. It was used in folk medicine as an aid in nearly all kinds of sickness and fed to ailing stock. However, it was not until Gray's Synoptical Flora of North America (1870) that the plant was mentioned medicinally as a " popular medicine. " There is no mention of it in the medical literature prior to Drs. Meyers and King. Their story is an interesting one. Dr. H. F. C. Meyers of Pawnee City, Nebraska had for many years been using the plant without knowing its botanical position. In a letter to Professor King of the Eclectic School, he explained his uses for the drug, as he had employed it for sixteen years. He claimed that it was an antispasmodic and antidote for blood-poisoning. He had been using it in a secret mixture with wormwood and hops--naming this mixture " Meyer's Blood Purifier. " He claimed that this mixture was an antidote for the bites of various insects and especially of the rattlesnake. Meyer stated that he had even allowed a rattler to bite him, after which he bathed the part with some of the tincture, took a dram of it internally and laid down and slept; when he awoke, the swelling had entirely disappeared (Felk:672). Professor King recorded that Dr. Meyer kindly offered to send him a rattler eight feet long to test the tincture on dogs, rabbits, etc., but " having no friendship for the reptile and being unaccustomed to handling this poisonous ophidian, the generous offer was courteously declined " (Ibid). In the autumn of 1885, Meyer sent it to Professor J. U. Lloyd of Cincinnati, who was the president of the American Pharmaceutical Association in 1887-8 and the founder of Lloyd Brothers Pharmaceutical Firm, which specialized in preparations from American plants. He was also a prolific author who left quite a literary legacy on American medicinal plants. Meyer wished to identify the plant so that he could sell it to Dr. King. Professor Lloyd, somewhat skeptical of Meyer's claims, wrote to him that he couldn't name the plant from the root only, so Meyer sent him, after another shipment of the root, a specimen plant, which his brother identified as Echinacea angustifolia. Dr. King proposed to investigate the plant, although Meyer's claims somewhat prejudiced Lloyd against it. Meyer's label on his Blood Purifier read: (front label) " Take one ounce three times every day in the following cases: Rheumatism, sick headache, erysipelas, dyspepsia, old sores, and piles, open wounds, dizziness, scrofula, and sore eyes. In cases of poisoning by herbs and c., take the double dose, and bites of rattlesnakes take three ounces three times a day till the swelling is gone. This is an absolute cure within 24 hours. " (back label) " This is a powerful drug as an alterative and antiseptic in all tumorous and syphilitic indications; old chronic wounds, such as fever sores, old ulcers, carbuncles, plies, eczema, wet or dry, can be cured quick and active; also Erysipelas. It will not fall in gangrene. In fever it is a specific; typhoid can be adverted in two or three days; also in Malaria, malignant, remittent and mountain fever it is a specific. It relieves pain, swelling and inflammation, by local use, internal and external. It has not and will not fall to cure diphtheria quick. It cures bites from the bee to the rattlesnake, it is a specific. Has been tested in more than fifty cases of mad dog bites in human and in every case prevented hydrophobia. It is perfectly harmless, internal and external. " Such extravagant claims classed it with other nostrums of the day which were not cure-alls at all. However, Dr. King was willing to experiment with the herb. Two years after beginning his investigation, he wrote an article on its therapeutic qualities which appeared in the 1887 Eclectic Medical Journal. He found that many of Meyer's claims were true, from this initial investigation, and indicated that if even half of them were true, that this would be an herb of significant value. Lloyd continued his skepticism until Dr. King's researches began to prove indisputably the excellence of the herb. Perhaps the most convincing test for the herb came in King's own home. His wife had been suffering from cancer for many years, for which King had attempted to treat her with various remedies but with little success. Finally he tried Echinacea, which both he and Mrs. King claimed produced her only relief. Mrs. King told Lloyd that whenever she stopped using Echinacea, her symptoms intensified, and she kept it by her till her dying day. After King's vindication of Echinacea, it grew popular among Eclectic physicians. Such extravagant claims were made for it--although most of them were verified and will be discussed below-that the medical establishment undertook to prove it valueless and published several articles to discredit it. However, despite their denunciations, Echinacea became an extremely popular plant, for many years one of the most widely sold medicines made out of an American plant. It was listed in the National Formulary, though in a very limited way; as Felter notes, " The first notices concerning Echinacea are from Eclectic physicians, and the drug is, from start to finish, an Eclectic medicine " (Felk:671). HERB OF MANY USES There have been so many reputed uses of Echinacea that it is difficult to include them all here. Felter termed it " a corrector of the depravation of the body fluids, " feeling even this to be inadequate, and it corrects the disturbed balance of the body's fluids, which results in such problems as boils, carbuncles, abscesses, cellular glandular inflammations. This imbalance, he claimed, might also result in malignant diphtheria, cerebrospinal meningitis, or puerperal and other forms of septicaemia. Such changes, whether they be internal or external, are helped by Echinacea, which removes " bad blood " or a tendency to malignancy (Felk:674). This is a prime discussion of the functions of alterative and antiseptic herbs, of which Echinacea seems to be a king. One of the first uses for Echinacea was therefore as a remedy for septic conditions of the body, particularly blood poisoning. A crushed hand, thought to be beyond aid, with the intolerable stench of putrid flesh, was saved by the application of Echinacea. It has also helped in poisonous bites of rattlesnake, tarantula, and other spiders, and from the stings of scorpions, bees, wasps, etc. (Ibid). It was used in cases of cerebrospinal meningitis because of its pain-relief and because this malady is caused by general sepsis. Prof. Webster, an early practitioner who used it in these cases, asserted that as a stimulant to the capillary circulation, no remedy is comparable with it, and it endows the vessels with a recuperative power or formative force, so as to enable them to successfully resist local inflammatory processes due to debility and blood depravation (Ibid), which we think is extremely interesting in view of the toxic conditions caused by pollution and low-quality food in today's world. Echinacea is the remedy for auto-infection, where the bloodstream becomes slowly infected either from within or without. Elimination is imperfect, the body tissues become altered, and various internal or external problems may result. Echinacea is especially useful in gangrene and sloughing of the soft tissues, as well as in glandular ulcerations and ulcers of the skin. Foul-smelling discharges are deodorized by it and the odor removed from cancers and ulcers; it has been proven to have helped in mammary cancer (Ell:359). A concentrated preparation of the root, excluding its sugar, called " echafolta, " was used in these cancer cases. The herb is markedly anesthetic in its local influence. Applied to open wounds and painful swellings, the tincture effects an immediate relief of pain. It relieves the terrible swelling pain of erysipelas and relieves the pain of cancerous growths. It is an intestinal antiseptic, although it may not have a direct chemical effect on bacteria, but destroys germs by building the resistance and cleansing the system so that the body itself can resist the germs. It therefore is excellent in the treatment of the serious fevers-typhoid, malaria, and the eruptive fevers, such as measles, chickenpox, and scarlet fever. It is similarly useful in influenza and la grippe. It has been used in inflammation of the intestinal tract, especially satisfactory in the case of appendicitis (Ibid.), as it quickly overcomes local blood stasis, prevents or cures ulceration and retards pus formation. It has been used in infants cholera, preventing the extreme nervousness sometimes associated with it. It has been proven to destroy the virus for cerebrospinal meningitis and curing the disease (Ibid.). It has been used in severe ulcerations of the throat and mouth, often so bad as to be termed diphtheria, with good results. It is also useful in tonsillitis. It is used in catarrhal conditions of the nasal and bronchial tracts, and in leucorrhea, in all of which there is a run-down condition of the system with fetid discharge, often associated with skin eruptions, especially of an eczema type. Chronic catarrhal bronchitis and fetid bronchitis have been cured by it, and it is said to ameliorate some of the unpleasant catarrhal complications of pulmonary tuberculosis and enhance expectoration. Especially when general debility accompanies the bronchial disorders, Echinacea should help clear it (Ell:350). Echinacea is a good remedy for fermentative dyspepsia. It will remove the gastric pains and allay the offensive breath due to this condition. It is also good for offensive gas. Many people have observed its good effects in cases of syphilis. The longest time, reported Ellington, to effect the cure was nine months (Ell:363). The patient begins to feel a general improved condition after taking the remedy a few days. It removes the pain and discomfort, removes the fever, and abates the evidences of the disease without after-effects. Probably the most remarkable case reported was a gentleman of about forty-five who became weak, lost his hair, and began to show symptoms which were called psoriasis but seemed to be like leprosy. He lost his fingernails, and his eye began to ulcerate. He was given Echinacea and began to gain back his weight and good appearance and within six weeks was as good as ever again. This must have resulted from serious sepsis in the system. Echinacea has long been employed for insect, snake and other poisonous bites, even of the deadly tarantula, and of the scorpion. It has been used in cases of hydrophobia, which are cases most difficult to credit. There have been many reports of good results, however. In five or six cases reported to Ellington, animals bitten at the same time as the patient had developed rabies and had even conveyed it to other animals, and yet the patient showed no evidence of poisoning, if the remedy was used at once. One case exhibited the developing symptoms of hydrophobia before Echinacea was taken. The symptoms disappeared shortly after treatment. In no case has the remedy been applied after the symptoms were fully developed, however. A rabid animal had once bitten a litter of six pups, all of which showed signs of hydrophobia and were killed. Some people were bitten by these pups; two died of hydrophobia, three were treated at the Pasteur Institute and cured, and one was treated with Echinacea and cured. The concentrated extract was taken internally and applied externally. It is also used in cases of tetanus. The remedy was injected into the wound after the tetanic symptoms had appeared. All the tissues surrounding the wound were filled with the remedy by hypodermic injection and gauze saturated with a full-strength tincture. It was also administered internally every two or three hours. The tetanus was cured; however, it should be taken with a powerful antispasmodic to be an effectual cure (Ell:364-5). Cases of goiter, impetigo contagiosa, local infection, urethral infection, diabetic ulcers, alopecia (baldness), and so on, are reported to have been effectively treated with Echinacea. Felter reported that the physiological action of the herb has never been satisfactorily explained. It has been held to increase phagocytosis and to improve both leukopenia and hyperleucocytosis. That it stimulates and hastens the elimination of waste is certain, and it possesses antibacterial power. In the view that many toxic substances are introduced into the system of modern man, and that poisonings and infections are increasingly likely, especially if some economic disturbances occur and people are no longer able to procure the services of physicians, it would be wise to grow one's own Echinacea and to store it for medicinal use. Modern herbalists recommended it for blockage in the lymphatic system and for blood cleansing. Tierra says that the only times he has known it to fail have been when not enough has been taken, and that it seems completely nontoxic (Tie:92). However, an overdose can produce some bad effects. The temperature is reduced, the pulse becomes less frequent, the mucous membrane becomes dry and parched, accompanied by a prickly sensation; there is a headache of a bursting character and a tendency to fainting. The face and upper body are flushed, there is general pain throughout the body, with dimness of vision, intense thirst, gastric pains, and vomiting and watery diarrhea. No fatal case of poisoning has ever been reported, however, and the above symptoms only result from extreme doses (Ell:359). More findings on Echinacea Most of the recent research has been done by Germans and published in their language, so interested Americans have little access to it. In 1950, Stoll et. al. isolated two glycosides from Echinacea which exhibited mild antibiotic activity against Strep and Staph infections. O. Kuhn in 1953 found that a purified extract made from the root inhibited the enzyme hyaluronidase which is associated with the infection process, while activating the white blood cells, and hystocytes, and stimulating the regeneration of the cellular connective tissue and epidermal cells. In the same year Koch and Uebel in Cologne found that guinea pigs pretreated with subcutaneous injections of Echinacea and then subjected to Strep infections exhibited a marked inhibition of bacterial cell growth compared with control animals. Research conducted in Italy by Bonadea, Bottazzi and Lavassa in 1971 isolated a polysaccharide, " echinacin B, " which helped neutralize the hyaluronidase, which increases the infection process. In 1978, Wacker and Hilbig at Frankfort found that alcohol and water extracts of Echinacea possess an interferon-like activity in protecting cells against viral induced canker sores, influenza and herpes. In Germany, the extract is used as an influenza preventative--much better than the flu injections employed here in the United States! In 1978, German researcher Reith, showed that capsules and tablets containing whole plants or plant parts of Echinacea, plus lactic acid, were effective in the treatment of numerous allergies. In 1981, Wagner and Proksch of the Institute of Pharmaceutical Biology, Munich, discovered two polysaccharides in Echinacea that possess immuno-stimulating properties. They stimulated F-cell activity 20 to 30 percent more than a highly potent T-cell stimulator. The immune system stimulating effects of Echinacea is one of the most important scientific findings for this genus. These could become alternatives to chemotherapy and prevent infections by activating the immune system, especially in persons whose immune response has become impaired. This is potentially useful in infection but especially in cases of cancer, wherein the immune system is often broken down. In 1972, Voakin, Denys and-Jacobsen identified an oncolytic hydrocarbon from Echinacea's essential oils, which possess tumor-inhibiting capabilities. These inhibited both Walker carcinosarcoma and lymphocytic leukemia, although it was found to be inactive in lymphoid leukemia. Martin Jacobsen also isolated echinacein in 1967. This is an insecticidal competent effective against house flies. In 1975 he isolated echinolone, an insect growth regulator mimicking juvenile hormones in the yellow meal worm. In 1947 Hartzell found that acetone extracts of Echinacea killed 50% of the larvae of a mosquito at concentrations of 1000 ppm or less. Studies over the last thirty years have revealed that Echinacea has a potent and diverse pharmacological activity, working in cases as varied as the ones the early researchers uncovered. CULTIVATION, COLLECTION, PREPARATION Echinacea is relatively easy to propagate and cultivate. Foster recommends that more Echinacea be cultivated to alleviate the strain on the wild species. Echinacea can be started from seeds, by dividing the offshoots of the crowns or by planting four to five inch sections of root, as you would comfrey. He mentions a few tricks to growing Echinacea from seed. The seed has some embryo dormancy and a short period of cold stratification increases the speed and frequency of germination. Place seeds in a moist but not wet sand in a plastic bag and refrigerate for one month. Once a month has passed, wash the sand off the seeds in a strainer, one that will let the sand through without letting the seeds through. Planting the seeds on top of a soil mix rather than tramping them down beneath the soil will result in quicker germination. After dormancy, seeds sown on the surface of a soil mix of 1/3 sand, 1/3 peat and 1/3 sterile potting soil will germinate within five days after planting. Seeds that are covered with soil, on the other hand, germinate within two weeks to a month. Seeds stratified in the winter, allowed to dry out, then planted in the spring take about six weeks to germinate. You can stratify your seed in a cold frame over the winter. Water them in the spring and cover with a light straw mulch, allowing light to reach the seed as well as retaining moisture. Echinacea seed can also be sown directly in the garden, although germination rates are usually substantially lower than greenhouse or cold frame-sown seeds. Fall-sown seeds in a jiffy pot in a greenhouse germinate well. If the seedlings are started in a greenhouse, then planting at 1.5 foot intervals, with rows spaced at three feet, an acre should hold about 9,800 plants. One pound of seed should be ample to plant an acre. Seeds and seedlings of Echinacea are readily available from nurseries and seed companies that deal in herb plants. Echinacea can also be started by dividing offshoots from the crowns. After you harvest the plant, leave a half inch or so, including the crown. You should get two to seven buds or eyes from one crown. Each bud will produce a new plant. If roots are harvested in the fall, the buds can be heeled in sand in a root cellar for the winter months, being sure to keep moist. You can also grow the crown indoors for a pot plant. Echinacea can withstand moderately droughty conditions. Foster places a flat rock about six inches below the soil surface directly under where he sets his seedlings. The roots grow along this rock and then below, making it easier to harvest the roots than if you had to dig the two-and-one-half foot root. Seedlings may take three or four years to mature. Fall is the best time to harvest roots. They should be cleaned after being dug, then dried under low forced heat or in open air in the shade. If the tops of Echinacea are wished, the plant takes about two years to mature and may last for up to ten years. In the first year, the plant does not produce enough foliage to harvest and rarely flowers. As with Ephedra and other herbs, the variety and conditions of growth greatly influence the medicinal content of the herb. Plants growing in dry, low-nitrogen soils produce higher concentrations of essential oils, while moist, nitrogen-rich soils produce higher levels of alkaloids. Foster recommends only harvesting a few of the wild Echinacea and growing the variety which seems to work best medicinally, the angustifolia or pallida varieties usually preferred. Echinacea can be used as a tea, in capsules, compressed into tablets, in oils, or in extracts or tinctures. The latter are especially valuable during emergencies. It yields its medicine to water or alcohol. DESCRIPTION Echinacea is represented by nine species and two varieties indigenous to North America. They are perennial herbs with vertical or horizontal roots. The stems stand erect, singly or branched, and have rough coarse hairs, stiff bristly hairs, straight stiff hairs appressed toward the surface, or are smooth and covered with a white substance that rubs off. On the lower part of the stem the alternately arranged leaves have long stalks. Towards the top of the flower stalk the leaves become progressively smaller and sessile. Leaves are entire, without teeth and pubescent or smooth. The solitary flowerhead sits atop a long flower stalk. The involucre, a set of leaf-like structures, encircles the stem directly below the flowerhead. The bracts are lance shaped. In Echinacea the phyllaries are imbricate in a series of two or more. Closely studying an Echinacea flower will soon reveal that the phyllaries transform into pales as they move from the involucre to the flowers themselves. The pales are chaffy scales found just below the fruit. In Echinacea the pales extend slightly beyond the corolla of each disk flower. They appear to be folded together lengthwise and end in sharp, blunt, or slightly curved points. Once the flowerhead is dry, the pales remain intact, and form the chief feature of the dried flower. It is these spiny pales that prompt the name Echinacea, which is derived from the Greek, echinos, meaning sea urchin or hedgehog, referring to the sharp pointed pales. The showy ray flowers surrounding each flowerhead are sterile. The long strap-like ligules have two or three slight teeth at the ends. The ligules are white, pink, rose, purple or even yellow. The fertile disk flowers are red-brown in color and inconspicuous compared to the ray flowers or even the pales which are often bright orange in one variety. The corolla tubes of the disk flowers are cylindrical and five-lobed. There are five stamens. The pollen is yellow or white. The small one-seeded fruit are four-sided and have slight teeth at each corner of the crown. The roots are taproots or fibrous. The root has a sweetish taste at first, which upon prolonged chewing is acrid, tingling, and numbing. This numbing sensation has been likened to aconite and cocaine, as well as the prickly sensation of prickly ash. The dried root is gray-brown or red-brown in color, wrinkled, and twisted lengthwise, often in a spiral. The root varies in size from that of a pencil to a large finger. The Inner woody portion of the root, when cut transversely, shows yellow medullary rays separated by greenish-gray fibers. E. angustifolia, the most well-known species, has simple or sometimes branched stems and grows from six to twenty inches high. The stems are sparsely to densely covered with rough pubescence stiff bristly hairs, sometimes swollen at their bases. The leaves are oblong-lance shaped, without teeth, dark green, with three to five nerves running the length of the blade. The ray flowers are spreading and are very short. The ray flowers are shorter than or as wide as the width of the disk. This species is found on barrens and dry prairies from Minnesota to Texas in the east, west to Montana and Saskatchewan. It occurs in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, the Dakotas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. E. pallida is quite similar to angustifolia, though it is stouter and taller, growing to a height of 39 inches. The narrow ray flowers are strongly reflexed, drooping and incurving toward the stem, and quite long. The pales of the flowerhead tend to be longer and narrower than those of angustifolia. E. pallida has white pollen. The flowers are pale white to deep purple. They tend to bc lighter in color in the south. It flowers early June through July. It has a more eastern and broader range than angustifolia, occurring in open woods, glades, and rocky prairies from northeast Texas, eastern Oklahoma, and Kansas, north to Iowa and Wisconsin and east to Indiana. It is relatively unusual east of Illinois. CHRISTOPHER FORMULAS CONTAINING ECHINACEA Dr. Christopher's well known and time tested blood purifying and immune stimulating formula Blood Stream Formula contains Echinacea. It is also found in his weight loss formula Appetite Formula. Other effective formulas containing Echinacea are Immune System Formula, one of the best quality immune stimulants available and Kid-e-Mune a children's immune stimulant. Echinacea & Goldenseal are available in capsules, as well as Echinacea in a glycerine extract. RELATED PLANTS There are other species in the Echinacea family, many of which share medicinal properties with the commonly used ones described above. They are E. purpurea, E. atrorubens, E. paradoxa, E. paradoxa var. neglecta, E. sanguinea, E. simulate, E. laevigata, and E. tennesseensis, the latter two being very rare and considered endangered species. BIBLIOGRAPHY Barlow, Max G. From the Shepherd's Purse. Felter, Harvey Wickes. The Eclectic Materia Medica, Pharmacology and Therapeutics. Portland: Eclectic Medical Publications, 1983. Felter, Harvey Wickes and John Uri Lloyd. King's American Dispensary. 2 Vols. Portland: Eclectic Medical Publications, 1983. Foster, Steven. Echinacea Exalted! Drury, MO: Ozark Beneficial Plant Project (New Life Farm, Inc., Box 129, Drury, MO 65638), 1984. This little book is must reading for anyone desiring to investigate Echinacea more deeply. It contains a good bibliography for those who will do in-depth research. Grieve, M., Mrs. A Modern Herbal. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1980. Hutchens, Alma R, Indian Herbology of North America. Kumbakonam, S. India: Homeo House Press, 1970. Christopher, John R. School of Natural Healing. Provo, Utah, 1975. Tierra, Michael. The Way of Herbs, Santa Cruz: Unity Press, 1980. Vogel, Virgil J. American Indian Medicine. New York: Ballantine Books, 1970. Used by permission - Dr. Christopher's Newsletters - Volume 6 Number 12 http://www.herbsfirst.com/NewsLetters/1002Echinacea.html return to newsletters index DISCLAIMER The information provided here is for educational purposes only, and should not be used to diagnose and treat diseases. If you have a serious health problem, we recommend that you consult a competent health practitioner. After each product is a list of what it has been used to aid. We are not claiming that the product will cure any of these diseases or that we created them to cure these disorders. We are merely reporting that people have used the product to aid these conditions. Finally, we wish to caution you that the information on this web site is for educational purposes only. Always consult with a qualified health practitioner before deciding on any course of treatment, especially for serious or life-threatening illnesses. The complete " Whole Body " Health line consists of the " AIM GARDEN TRIO " Ask About Health Professional Support Series: AIM Barleygreen " Wisdom of the Past, Food of the Future " http://www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest/AIM.html PLEASE READ THIS IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER We have made every effort to ensure that the information included in these pages is accurate. 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Guest guest Posted April 26, 2004 Report Share Posted April 26, 2004 I take Echinacea in the form of Esberitox for arthritis pain, and have had excellent results. ellen In , JoAnn Guest <angelprincessjo> wrote: > ECHINACEA > > > Although Echinacea is now very well-known, it is essentially a new remedy. Many herbs with as powerful effects as Echinacea have been known throughout the world for centuries, but this wonderful remedy came into prominence during the last century with the Eclectic school and cannot be found in the ancient herbals. > > Except where noted, the information in this newsletter comes from an excellent little book, Echinacea Exalted... See bibliography, > > There are several species in the genus Echinacea, and many of them are used medicinally, although the pallida is also used, sometimes being considered a sub-species of the angustifolia. The purpurea has also been frequently used medicinally. We will mention other species in the section on Related Plants; the above are the commonest medicinal species. > > The American Indians of the Great Plains and adjacent areas used Echinacea as a plant for many ailments. In addition to the medicinal uses of the Indians, the dried flowerheads were used by tribes of the Missouri River region--specifically, the Meskwaki and Kiowa--as hair combs. Children of the Pawnee tribe used the dried flower stalks for a game in which two stalks were whirled around one another. > > Medicinally, Echinacea seems to have been one of the foremost medicinal plants for the American Indians, although our history of it is fragmented, because information has only been collected since the Indians were driven onto reservations. However, Gilmore in his Uses of Plants by the Indians of the Missouri River Region said, " Echinacea seems to have been used as a remedy for more ailments than any other plant. " The Cheyenne used the leaves and roots as a tea for sore throats, gums, and mouth, also chewing the roots for the same ailments. An infusion of the root was rubbed on sore necks. The Crows used the fresh root for toothache pain. The Comanches used the root for toothache and sore throats. A juice from the root was used for colds and colic. The Meskwaki used the root tea for stomach cramps. They also used the root tea for " fits " in combination with other herbs. Montana Indians chewed the flower-- fresh or dry--to increase saliva flow. They also used the herb externally as a > snake bite remedy, as did the Sioux, who used the fresh root to treat hydrophobia and septic conditions. > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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