Patriots--675; Redskins--0. The Medicinal Use of Lomatium

Disclaimer.  I am not a licensed health practitioner.  This is just another post on an item you might wish to have available if needed so that a physician can treat you and your family as best as possible.  No medication, including those available over the counter, should be taken without consulting a physician.  Information shared here is for educational and entertainment purposes only.  It is not medical advice nor a substitute for licensed medical care.  A qualified, licensed physician or other medical provider should be consulted before beginning any herbal or conventional treatment.


Patriots--675; Redskins--0.  That looks like the scoreboard for one heck of a football game.  And if that were actually the case, I sure wouldn't want to be the Redskins.  Fortunately for the Redskins, it never happened, but something kind of like it did.

Let's change the team names to Other Americans and Washoe Indians.  And while we're at it, let's multiply each side's score by 1,000, so the Other Americans have 675,000 points and the Washoe Indians (still) have 0.  And for good measure, let's change the name of the game from football to life.  That looks like the scoreboard for most of American history, doesn't it?  The whites usually won.

But not always, and in this game, the low score is the winner.  So this time, the Washoe Indians absolutely killed it.

The game edition was influenza.  The years 1918-1920.  The Washoe Indians were living in poverty on the reservations allocated to them.  They lacked money for trained doctors and medical care.  They definitely lacked good nutrition at times.

And yet, they lost not a single person to influenza.  The rest of America, with all their advantages, lost 675,000.  What did the Washoe Indians know?

They knew lomatium.

The Washoe Indians used Lomatium dissectum, commonly known as fernleaf biscuit root, a species indigenous to the Great Basin of North America.  It is also called desert parsley.  Other species, including Lomatium ambiguum, L. bicolor, L. cous, L. foeniculaceum, L. grayi, L. macrocarpum, L. nudicaule, L. orientale, L. simplex, and L. triternatum, can be used identically.

When local doctor Ernst Krebs noticed that the Indians, with all the strikes they had against them, were not dying of influenza, but the whites, with all their advantages were regularly succumbing, he went to the Indians for help.  And they taught him how to use lomatium.  With that little bit of knowledge, even the patients he felt were beyond hope fully recovered.

Parts used.  Most herbalists use just the roots, but the seeds are actually more powerful. 

Time to harvest.  The roots can be harvested at any time of year.  However, it is easier to identify the plants in the spring and easier to dig them after a good spring rain.  The root must be strongly aromatic, bitter, and oily if it is to be used as an antiviral.  Roots from younger plants are not as medicinal as roots from older plants.  However, the seeds are medicinal no matter how old the plant is.  Keep in mind that if the root tastes good, it's good for food, but not medicine.  And younger roots are more likely to taste better.  Dry the roots for just a few days and then cut them up.  Once dried and well sealed in the dark, they will last several years.

PREPARATION OPTIONS

• Tincture
• fresh root or seeds 1:2 herb to alcohol.  Chop the wilted root as finely as possible.  Add alcohol/water--70% grain alcohol, 30% water.  Let macerate (soak) in cool dark place for 2 weeks.  
• dried root powder, 1:5 herb to alcohol/water.  Then same as above.
• dried seeds, 1:3 herb to alcohol ratio, 50% alcohol.
• dosage is 10-30 drops up to 4-5x per day.  In acute conditions, 10-30 drops per hour.
• Infusion
• This is what the Washoe Indians used.  It worked pretty well for them, just going by the numbers.  The problem is being able to find the root when you need it, especially if you don't know what it looks like in the winter, under the snow.  That's why you want a tincture on hand, just in case.
• Use 1 teaspoon powder in 6 ounces boiling water.  Cover and let steep 10-15 minutes.  Use 3-4 times per day, or more often in acute conditions.
• The above is what herbalist Stephen Buhner recommends.  The following is how the Washoe Indians actually used it.
• Peel one pound of lomatium root.  Boil it in water (no mention as to how long) and skim the oil off the top.  A large dose of the broth was given to those afflicted with the flu over the course of three days.  Within a week, each patient was completely recovered. 
• Wound powder
• Use in conjunction with other herbs, like Usnea, juniper leaf, Oregon grape root, and echinacea root or seed, in equal amounts, to make a powder for treating wounds, diaper rash, and athlete's foot.  
• Cough syrups
• Lomatium is often combined with several other herbs to produce a very effective cough syrup.  According to Ernst Krebs, this cough syrup was more effective than the opiates in use at the time and the effects lasted longer.

The Washoe Indians also used lomatium for treating rheumatism, arthritis, the common cold, pneumonia, and tuberculosis. 

For those who do not have lomatium growing locally (it's only found west of the Mississippi), lomatium is pretty widely available in commercial preparations online.

Contraindications.  Not for use by pregnant women.

Side effects:  About 1 percent of people who use Lomatium dissectum will develop a significant allergic rash.  (Other species do not cause the rash.)  This occurs only with the fresh root tincture, and only if it is taken alone, rather than in conjunction with other herbs.  There is no itching or discomfort with this rash, but it looks bad.  The rash begins within eight hours of taking the tincture.  It covers the whole body and is deep red to purple.  Nothing will make this rash go away, except time, about a week.  To avoid the rash, use the dried root for making your tinctures. 


Links to related posts:
Book review--Herbal Antibiotics
Book review--Herbal Antivirals
Usnea
Juniper
Berberines
Echinacea

For further reading:
https://med.unr.edu/Documents/unsom/history/greasewood-tablettes/gwt-summer-2012.pdf
Herbal Antibiotics, p 373


© 2019, PrepSchoolDaily.blogspot.com 

10.16.23

The Medicinal Uses of Sugar

Disclaimer.  I am not a licensed health practitioner.  This is just another post on an item you might wish to have available if needed so that a physician can treat you and your family as best as possible.  No medication, including those available over the counter, should be taken without consulting a physician.  Information shared here is for educational and entertainment purposes only.  It is not medical advice nor a substitute for licensed medical care.  A qualified, licensed physician or other medical provider should be consulted before beginning any herbal or conventional treatment.

Here we are on Christmas Eve; our society still hasn't totally collapsed.  Yeah!!  With any luck, as you and your children and grandchildren go to sleep, you'll all have visions of sugar plums dancing in your heads.

However, after celebrating the birth of our Savior, when it's time to return to the daily grind and learn and prepare more, hopefully you'll remember the little tidbit of information shared here today.

Sugar, regular white granulated sugar, has a clinically researched and proven medical use.  The study came about because an African physician working in a hospital in the UK noticed several patients for whom conventional drug therapy had failed to treat acute and chronic exuding wounds.  And he wondered why the treatment he had seen his tribal doctor grandfather use in Africa was not being employed here.  Didn't everybody know about using sugar to treat such wounds?

Apparently, such knowledge had been long forgotten in a world where we have lots of money and can afford expensive drug therapies.  Unfortunately, some of those very expensive antibiotic therapies are failing the fight against MRSA.  Sugar, however, has been shown to work.

If you have a wound, such as a diabetic ulcer on the legs or feet or a burn or cut, you can apply sugar to it.  If you apply some and it immediately soaks up the fluid in the wound, apply more until you still have some dry sugar on top.  Apply a non-adherent bandage and secure in place.  Change the dressing every other day.  Do not wash away or remove the old sugar when changing the dressing; that will also remove the very delicate new tissue that is forming.  Just add more sugar on top.  Keep doing this until the wound is healed.

In the case of a large wound, you may wish to put a ring of petroleum jelly around the edges to better contain the sugar.

So why does sugar work here?  Well, there are a couple of reasons.  First, the sugar draws the fluid in the tissue out, keeping it dry and better able to heal.  Second, it creates an acidic environment, which is very hostile to bacteria.  Third, it also helps relieve pain, which contributes to greater sense of well-being in the patient and less stress in the body.  

(This research was conducted using granulated sugar in the UK.  In the United States, well over 90% of sugar beets are GMO.  You may wish to use only cane sugar.)

Our personal experience with using sugar to treat a wound is ongoing.  About a month ago, one of my daughter's French angora rabbits somehow got some fiber wrapped around his back leg and pulled tight.  By the time my daughter discovered this, he had chewed off hair and skin, we assume in an effort to relieve the pain associated with having the blood supply constricted.  Everything around his foot and up to an inch above his ankle was completely gone.  Because we couldn't ascertain the extent to which his circulation had been compromised, my husband and I gave him less than a 1% chance of survival.  Surely infection would set in.

We discussed options with our daughter, who of course was feeling horrible, it was all her fault, etc.  Coal didn't seem to be in pain, as long as we didn't touch that leg.  We could try to treat him, but we were sure he wouldn't make it.  Did she want to try?  She did.

We tried honey, once.  Honey and angora rabbits aren't a good mix anyway, and it was hard to get the honey on his foot without hurting him.  Next we tried a mixture of usnea, juniper, and yarrow.  In retrospect, I think I should have applied more than I did.  We had a hard time getting the wound powder to stay with the wound, even with bandaging.  During this entire time, the bunny was getting fresh greens from the yard, until hard freezes killed them, as well as usnea tincture in his water.  Rabbits are extremely sensitive and conventional antibiotics often do more harm than good.  Some healing was occurring, miraculously, but it also smelled bad--not gangrene bad, but still bad.

About eight days ago, we decided to try sugar.  That was the ticket.  We poured it on as best we could, trying to cover all sides.  We decided it was easier to dip his foot in a bowl of sugar.  The smell dissipated almost immediately.  We think healing has accelerated.  We're pretty sure he's going to make it.

(Update:  I write my blog posts about a month in advance.  I so wish we had taken pictures of Coal's foot and leg from the beginning, but I didn't think there was a point.  There was no way this bunny was going to survive.  However, survive he did and is doing.  I now think he had chewed off all his skin and was left with nothing but muscle and bone when we began treatment.  Today, seven or eight weeks after his injury, he has almost all his skin grown back.  And it's growing hair as well.  I'm still blown away by that.  I figured even if skin did grown back it would all be scar tissue and no hair at all.  He still has a few bandage changes in his future before he is fully healed, but man, what a difference.  I'm amazed.) 

(And another update:  That bunny lived another two years, until dying of old age.)

Below, I pasted in the link to the article as well the pertinent portions of the abstract.  I encourage you to read it.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21647066

Use of granulated sugar therapy in the management of sloughy or necrotic wounds: a pilot study.

Murandu M¹, Webber MA, Simms MH, Dealey C.

In the in vitro studies three types of granulated sugar (Demerara, granulated beet sugar and granulated cane sugar) were tested to determine their minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) against 18 Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria in a micro-titre broth dilution assay; growth inhibition of Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa in different concentrations of sugar (0.38-25%) was also tested over 12-hours in an agar diffusion assay. The pilot clinical study selected patients from a vascular surgical ward and a vascular outpatient department. All had acute or chronic exuding wounds, some of which were infected. White granulated sugar was applied to the wounds. The following parameters were assessed: surface area; wound characteristics including pain, malodour, appearance (slough/granulation); exudate level; pain level and bacterial load. Patients with diabetes had their blood sugar levels checked daily. All patients completed a short health questionnaire at the start and end of the study. Staff completed a satisfaction questionnaire at the end of the study. The study period was 21 days.

In vitro tests demonstrated that sugar inhibits bacterial growth. All three types of sugars had MICs ranging from 6-25% in the bacterial strains tested. The diffusion tests showed that strains were able to grow well in low concentrations of sugar but were completely inhibited in higher concentrations. The two granulated sugars were found to be slightly more effective than Demerara sugar, so the latter was excluded from the clinical pilot study. Twenty-two patients (20 inpatients and two outpatients) with sloughy or necrotic wounds were recruited into the clinical study. Two patients had MRSA and two had Staphylococcus colonisation at baseline. Blood sugar levels remained stable in the seven patients with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. All wounds were clean/debrided in a mean of 11.13 days. Pain and malodour reduced markedly. Patient and staff surveys revealed overwhelming support for the sugar therapy.

The pilot study achieved its aim of developing a protocol for a RCT. Preliminary data suggest that sugar is an effective wound cleansing and is safe to use in patients with insulin-dependent diabetes. In vitro studies demonstrate that sugar inhibits bacterial growth.

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