For thousands of years herbs
have been used in healing different types of ailments and diseases. People have
passed down their own family recipes for herbal remedies from generation to
generation. Much of the knowledge we have today about herbs and herbal medicine
originally derived from the American Indians. Hippocrates, the “Father” of
medicine used herbs and different combinations of herbs in his medical
practices. 
A lot of the medicines today
were originally produced from herbs, but are now synthetically produced in a
lab. I don’t know about you, but I much rather treat my illnesses with natural
ingredients rather than have them “created” in a lab. This herbal medicine
cabinet series will walk you through the basics of herbal remedies. We will
talk about the different methods of using herbs such as: teas, tinctures,
salves, and others. Once we lay down the basics of using herbs we will go into
more detail about each method in particular.
We don’t want to just list a
bunch of recipes for you. We want to teach you the why and how in regards to
applying the remedies to different ailments you may experience. We want to
start off by giving you a run-down of several terms you will see in this herbal
medicine cabinet series.
- Infusions – basically these are teas made from the leaves or flowers of different herbs.
- Decoction – This is a tea like the infusion, but it is made from the roots and bark of the herb instead of the leaves and flowers.
- Waters – these are infusions made to drink in cold form like for sports drinks.
- Capsules – These are a convenient way to use herbs if you do not like the Infusions. They are more or less taking the herb in a pill form.
- Tinctures – This is the process of extracting the herb properties into vinegar or alcohol.
- Oils – this is also an extraction like with the tincture only it is extracted into oil instead.
- Salves – these are a combination of ingredients into an ointment used locally to promote healing.
- Poultice – This is basically a warm or cold compress made from herbs. and applied locally to the area of the ailment you are treating.
We hope this article has given
you a good overview into the world of herbal remedies. The rest of the series
will break down the previously mentioned methods and go into more detail about
how to make them as well as explain how they can be applied to the different
ailments. We hope you find this series helps you in your herbal remedy journey.
Stay tuned for the next issue in which we will be diving into the world of
Herbal Teas or “Infusions.”
