Herbal Medicine: Trends and Traditions a Comprehensive Sourcebook on the Preparation and Use of Medicinal Plants. / by Charles W. Kane. Published by Lincoln Town Press, 2009. 325 p. 58 color plates. ISBN 978-09771333-2-1 (pbk.).
“The point of this work is to relay how plants help people”. — from the Introduction
A uniquely crafted book of information on medicinal herbs, Charles Kane’s Herbal Medicine: Trends and Traditions presents two chapters, “Preparation” and “Materia Medica” containing 103 selected herbs; these are followed by “Appendix: A; B; C; D; and E”, “Bibliography”, “Glossary” and “Index”. “Preparation” delivers detailed instruction on making herbal medicines in capsule, liquid, and ointment form. “Materia Medica”, the main part of the book, provides individual plant profiles, identifying the value of plant constituents for human physical well-being. The Appendices are an extrapolation of the entries in Materia Medica, offering a Therapeutic Index, Repository, Family Grouping, Worksheets, and Weights and Measures. An established herbalist and director of his school of herbal medicine, Kane uses a very approachable and practical writing style. You can hear the personal voice of the tutor in these words on formulas:
“A well-formulated mixture should be direct, elegant and unfettered. Keep in consideration the multi-systemic nature of herbs. They usually affect more than one organ system… Excessive polypharmacy is rampant in the natural supplement industry.” — from the Introduction
58 color plates of photographs bound into the middle of the text as a group, serve to illustrate herbs in the Materia Medica. They are clear and detailed, showing how the plant grows, its relative size, the flowers or fruit, or root system if notable for recognition of the individual. Each plate is identified by a caption featuring the botanical name.
In “Preparation”, Kane discusses all forms of herbal medicines beginning with baths, capsules and cough syrups, to tinctures, washes and “washes, nasal” encompassing internal and external uses. The Reader might compare “Fluidextract” versus “Tincture” for specifics on how the strength of a preparation and its dosage are achieved. A fluid extract or tincture may be prepared for use alone or in herbal teas, washes or baths, or added to other ingredients in syrups, ointments, liniments and salves, etc. Methods of creating an herbal liquid include distillation, percolation, maceration: the first two require heat. Maceration utilizes soaking the herb in a mixture of alcohol and cool water over a long period of time and is often used with dried plant parts. Fresh plant tinctures require more herb by weight than dry plant tinctures.
Only 12 of the 103 herbs profiled in Kane’s Materia Medica: Cloves, Coffee, Eleuthero, Ginseng, Gota Kola (otherwise known as Gotu Kola), Guaraná (Brazil), Kava, Kola Nut, Maté, Tea, Tea Tree, and Turmeric are not native, naturalized or widely cultivated in the United States, having been part of the indigenous medicine in African, Asian, Southeast Asian, Oceanic and South American countries long before being recognized here. After examining an herb profile in the Materia Medica, a glance at its entry in Appendix B: Repository, will reveal more specific information about the preparation of the herb, what methods are best for administration and dosage, the plant part used. For example, the root bark of Eleutherococcus is best prepared from the dry plant, and dispensed as a fluidextract or cold infusion. Also a root, Panax ginseng, is best administered as small pieces (to be chewed), in capsule form or as a dry plant tincture. Eleuthero and Ginseng are both adaptogenic and tonic to the system, originally used widely in Asia to correct weakness, reduced libido in males and as a cancer preventative. Coffee, taken for its taste and caffeine, is rivaled by Maté and Guaraná. The leaves of Maté, Ilex paraguayensis, may be administered as a coffee substitute, infused to 6 or 8 oz of liquid, and taken two or three times a day, and is better for the circulatory and gastrointestinal systems than coffee.
Plant taxonomy is the science of categorizing the hundreds of thousands of known plant species into hierarchies or groups; we are familiar with medicinal plants by these groups: Family, Genus and Species. The listing in Appendix C will show which medicinal plants are considered to belong in the same Family category, the level in plant hierarchy just above the botanical name of the plant. In Appendix C: Family Groupings are shown plant relationships under the heading of the associated plant family. For example, two of the largest groupings are Asteraceae (Sunflower Family) and Roseacea (Rose Family). The Sunflower Family, retains Arnica, Artemisia, Calendula, Dandelion, Echinacea, Milk Thistle, and Stevia, among its 43 entries. And the Rose Family holds Hawthorn, Loquat, Strawberry and Rose among its 12 entries.
Kane’s “Bibliography” supports his research for the Materia Medica, and presents at least three articles for each herb there, with citations from recent articles in journals such as Phytomedicine, Phytochemistry, Journal of Ethnopharmacology, Food Chemistry, Physiology and Behavior, etc.
The “Glossary” explains terms of diseases and conditions, parts of the body, types of medicine (allopathic, Ayurvedic, etc.) bodily processes, plant parts. It also contains terms normally associated with herbals, in that words like “adaptogen”, “alterative”, are included and can be cross-referenced in the Index.
The book was not completely edited for structure and typos.
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[…] The book could be considered a companion volume to other regional guides, certainly to Kane’s Herbal Medicine: Trend and Traditions, 2009, previously reviewed in this blog. […]