Book Review: Stephen Buhner's Herbal Antivirals

Stephen Harrod Buhner's Herbal Antivirals:  Natural Remedies for Emerging & Resistant Viral Infections is another essential volume to acquire for the medical prepping library.  Just like his Herbal Antibiotics book, in this volume Dr. Buhner clearly presents information for each of the herbs and viral diseases he discusses, without any fluff.  Everything is meticulously researched and documented, though much of the research does comes from outside the United States.  Maybe that's a plus. 
Buhner starts off this volume with an introduction to viruses, and though he includes the biological explanations of what viruses do, he pretty much keeps it to a level that most non-life science people with a couple of brain cells to rub together can understand.  He keeps it at a conversational level, and even a bit entertaining at times.  He touches on polio, smallpox, and influenza--the stuff we're somewhat familiar with, and then brings out chikungunya, a virus spread by mosquitoes that causes fever and debilitating pain, for which doctors prescribed acetaminophen.  And the cause of death for many of chikungunya's victims was--get this--liver failure from the acetaminophen.

So what's to be done?  As Buhner points out, Big Pharma doesn't have a lot of antivirals at its disposal.  About 30% of the pages in this volume are devoted to Buhner's top seven antiviral herbs:  Chinese skullcap, elder, ginger, houttuynia, isatis, licorice, and lomatium, plus boneset and red root, which merit an honorable mention.  However, he also lists the many herbal options and dosages for all the illnesses he discusses; he just doesn't go into elaborate detail on the others.  So you'll also learn or be reminded of how to use blackberry, raspberry, oregano, thyme, knotweed, berberine, and many other herbs in your treatment of viral diseases.  And he offers some advice and herbal suggestions for strengthening the immune system. 

In the appendices, Buhner includes an introduction to making herbal medicine as well as a list of suppliers he recommends.  Now, as preppers, we're probably happier being able to produce our own medicine, and fortunately, the author also includes, with his discussion on each of the herbs, guidelines for growing and harvesting the herbs and sources for obtaining seeds or plants.  So there's that to look forward to.  In addition, the bibliography is over 50 pages long.  If you want to find sources for further researching a specific disease or herb, it's all there.

Like Herbal Antibiotics, I think this volume would be better with pictures to help with plant identification.  And one other complaint that some readers have is that very little attention devoted to the common cold.  To me, that's not a deal breaker.  A cold doesn't kill you, and if you strictly practice basic hygiene, common sense, and eat a healthy diet, you shouldn't have too many.

Like with his other books, Buhner's intended audience is those who want a natural, practical, and effective approach to treating viral diseases.  In that respect it is also quite invaluable to preppers looking for tools to defend themselves against enemies they can't even see. Buhner provides treatment protocols for viral respiratory infections like influenza, pneumonia, SARS, RSV, and croup; viral encephalitis infections such as Japanese, West Nile, tick-borne, and dengue; and other viruses like enterovirus, varicella (shingles), herpes, and Epstein-Barr. 

I'm glad I don't have to choose between getting Herbal Antibiotics or Herbal Antivirals.  They are both must-haves, in my opinion.  But if I did have to choose, the nod would go to Herbal Antibiotics.  Herbal Antibiotics covers the plants you want for treating respiratory diseases, which is probably huge for all of us.  I live in a desert where we have almost nothing in the way of ticks or mosquitoes, and much of Herbal Antivirals deals with tick- and mosquito-borne diseases.  If I did have to deal with ticks and mosquitoes, or if I were worried about shingles, I'd eat rice and beans for a month and save the money to get this book.  There should be a copy in every group, if not every family.

Links to related posts:
Alton's Antibiotics and Infectious Disease, Dr. Joe Alton and Amy Alton 
Herbal Antibiotics, by Stephen Buhner
The Herbal Medic, by Sam Coffman

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