There's a bit less medicinal herb harvesting and medicine making in the winter, so I thought for today I'd cover definitions for all the odd terms used by herbalists and which they seemingly assume that all their readers fully understand. Which might be okay if they all agreed on the definitions, but once you start doing some study, you gradually realize that they don't. It can make learning difficult, to say the least.
First off, in medicine, whether herbal or conventional, the medicine has to get to the tissue to be effective. It has to get there in sufficient amounts before it is eliminated from the body. Sometimes that means taking increased amounts of a medicine so that gets past the stomach or kidneys or liver to where it needs to go. In the very early days of penicillin, when it was expensive and slow to manufacture, patients were given large quantities of the drug, most of which was perceived as waste by the body and eliminated by the kidneys in the urine. Because penicillin was so valuable, the urine of patients taking penicillin was collected so that the penicillin being eliminated could be filtered out and re-used. Only small amounts of penicillin got past the kidneys and into the bloodstream where it could do its work.
Of course, herbs are eliminated from the body in the same way. However, it's sometimes easier and more effective to use different methods of administering herbs to get them to the tissues they need to go to. That's one reason for all the new terms encountered when dealing with herbs.
Another reason is that different processes are necessary to extract the active constituents of herbs so that they can be used as medicine. And all these processes have their own names and definitions. Of course, it would be nice if herbalists would all agree on the exact definitions. That would make life easier. (But why do that? Ugh.) So just keep this in mind when you read herbal medicine books and articles. It will ease the frustration.
Extract: Kind of a generic term, usually implies an alcohol extract, but some chemical constituents are extracted with water. And some herbalists will use this term with glycerin and vinegar as well.
Tea: Boiling water is poured over dried herbs, generally leaves and flowers (which are usually in a tea bag or tea ball), and the heat and water extract the active constituents. Taken internally.
Infusion: Best as I can tell, an infusion is the same thing as a tea. But teas are old-fashioned, while infusions sound so much cooler. Taken internally.
Decoction: Sometimes used interchangeably with tea and infusion. However, real herbalists insist that a decoction is much more concentrated than a tea or infusion, and/or that decoctions are made more from roots and woodier plant parts. (Note: Decoction always appears with a red squiggly line underneath it, as most word processing programs refuse to recognize it as a real word. But it is used by herbalists everywhere, so even if Bill Gates and Merriam-Webster say it isn't a real word, you'll still want to understand what herbalists mean by it.) Taken internally.
Poultice: A cloth dipped into an infusion, wrung out, and placed on a wound or swelling.
Plaster: Herbs, usually wet, placed directly on a wound or swelling, and held in place by a bandage.
Tincture: Alcohol is used to extract the chemical constituents of the herbs. Some constituents can best or can only be extracted by alcohol. Some are extracted well with lower proof alcohols (like 80 proof) and others want the hard stuff (pure grain alcohol, 190 proof, and illegal to sell or purchase (in some states), manufacture (DIY--moonshine, all states), but not illegal to possess. Fortunately, the alcohol is a fantastic preservative and tinctures are effective for several years. If you don't want to have the alcohol itself getting into your system, add the drops of tincture to boiling water. The alcohol will instantly dissipate and evaporate. Because these take up to several weeks to make, you want to have them ready before you get sick. Tinctures can also be made with vinegar, but vinegar does not extract the medicine as well as alcohol does, and they usually have a shelf life of only six to twelve months.
Glycerite: Or glycerin tincture. Vegetable glycerin is used to extract the chemical constituents instead of alcohol. Like vinegar, it is not as efficient at extracting the medicine and has a similarly short shelf-life. But it is good for making syrups, and especially good for making medicine for children, who might only take a tincture once and then say they'd rather die than take it again.
Salve: Dried herbs are infused in oils, usually for a few days, and then strained out and discarded. The oil is then gently heated and combined with beeswax to make topical treatment for external wounds.
Eyewash: Diluted tea or infusion to treat infections and irritations.
Essential oils: All the rage right now. Highly concentrated extracts of chemical constituents. Most are not advised for internal use. Can be quite useful, but difficult for the average person to grow enough herb to produce even the smallest quantities of essential oil.
Hopefully today's post has shed some light rather than muddying the waters.
1 march 2021
