Phytotherapie - Spagyrik - Homöopathie

The Origins of Herbal Medicine

The first part deals with phytotherapy. "Phyto" comes from the Greek word "phyton" and simply means "plant." Phytotherapy is thus the practice of using plants. In a narrower sense, it specifically refers to therapy with medicinal plants. But we will explore whether this is merely a form of therapy, or whether plants can also be part of a certain lifestyle.

How long phytotherapy or herbal medicine has existed is likely never to be definitively answered. Simply put, it has probably existed since the beginning of humanity. However, this idea is incomplete, as there are observations of animals that also seek out specific plants or plant parts when suffering from various illnesses.
One of the oldest documents in medical history is the "Papyrus Ebers," found in ancient Egypt, usually dated to the last quarter of the 16th century BC, though it is probably several decades older. ¹
The most famous ancient authors were surely Hippocrates of Kos (460-370 BC) and Galen of Pergamon (c. 130-200 AD). Hippocrates is thought to have said (in essence) that food should be medicine and medicine should be food.

However, today we see that indulgence in food and drink occurs at will, and when we fall ill, "light diets" are prescribed. There is no uniform medical definition for this, but Wikipedia states: "Another definition considers light diets as biologically complete food in easily digestible form." ²

Before the advent of fire in human life, animal foods were relatively insignificant. Only through grilling, smoking, and later other preservation methods did animals become interesting as food, and so in the early days, humanity likely subsisted exclusively on plants. Initially fruits, leaves, nuts, and seeds, and later roots, which were dug up. Over time, plants were used more deliberately as their specific effects were noticed. This led to the development of herbal medicine, which today can be broadly divided into empirical medicine and rational phytotherapy.

Speaking of empirical medicine, it is often portrayed that herbal medicine in the past was largely based on the so-called "trial and error" principle. As in: "Here, drink this tea... Oh, that herb must have been poisonous." Interestingly, however, this does not seem to have been the case at all. There is a discipline that has experienced a renaissance in recent decades: the doctrine of signatures. According to this, every plant communicates very clearly through its location, growth habit, flowers, leaves, color, scent, taste, etc., about where and how it works – if one understands the language of plants. In the 16th century, some major herbals by Leonhart Fuchs, Tabernaemontanus, and others were published, which comprehensively presented the knowledge of herbal medicine at that time. Modern laboratory techniques and so-called evidence-based medicine have discovered little of significance in the last 50 to 100 years. Some indications (applications) described at that time have been discarded, but ultimately over 80% of the knowledge of that time has been confirmed by clinical studies.

Variants of Herbal Medicine

You've probably heard of monastic medicine. It is not truly a separate form of herbal medicine, but it was elevated to a new level by the monasteries. After all, we're talking about a time when most people could neither read nor write, and most knowledge was passed down orally. Considering that, for example, in monasteries, castles, and palaces, people drank wine and beer rather than water (due to contamination causing nasty gastrointestinal infections), you can imagine that the transmission of knowledge was – let's say – somewhat incomplete. Interestingly, during a tour of Reichsburg Cochem, one is told that women used to drink up to three liters of beer and men up to five liters of beer per day (!). Monasteries were centers of learning, and at the same time, many patients were treated there or by them. In the monastic gardens (which can still be seen today in places like Fulda and Andechs), vegetables and herbs were grown for food supply as well as medicinal plants for patient care. Interesting documents also exist from the monasteries regarding crop rotations and cultivation methods that proved successful over time.

Historically, "monastic medicine" covers a period from roughly the 8th to the 12th century AD. Its origins lie in the "Regula Benedicti" of St. Benedict of Nursia, the founder of the Benedictine Order. In Chapter 36, he decreed that every monastery should have an infirmary and a trained caregiver. Pope Gregory I declared these rules to be a model for the monasteries of the Catholic Church.
When King and Emperor Charlemagne (747–814 AD) sought to reform his empire after the model of the Roman Empire, he entrusted the monasteries with, among other things, the task of providing medical care. One of the largest and best-known publications of monastic medicine is the Lorsch Pharmacopoeia, written around 790 AD. Fennel was the most frequently mentioned plant, but spices like ginger and pepper, as well as resins like myrrh and frankincense, were also often cited. Another important document was the St. Gall Monastery Plan, which served as a blueprint for an ideal monastery. The upper part included an entire infirmary with a hospital, doctor’s house, and herb garden, and where the seriously ill were housed in the monk-physician's home so he could attend to them immediately.

Another unique path was the so-called "Hildegard Medicine." Hildegard of Bingen is indeed a special case in medical history. Plagued by severe migraines, she had many visions, which were personally confirmed by the Pope as "of divine origin." She left behind several recipes that were unfamiliar to the monastic medicine of her time and were later extensively researched, applied, and published by Dr. Herzka and Strehlow.

A new form of herbal medicine is "rational phytotherapy," which, like many innovations, is both a blessing and a curse.
This type of therapy claims to apply herbal medicine according to scientific criteria, meaning that only plants with a "positive monograph" from Commission E are included in the formulations—plants whose effects have been proven by studies or sufficient documentation for a specific indication. The blessing is that knowledge has been advanced here, and the reliability of herbal medicines has been proven. Thus, some herbal preparations have even made it into guidelines for various diseases (e.g., myrrh-chamomile-coffee coal medicine for chronic inflammatory bowel diseases and horseradish-nasturtium medicine for uncomplicated urinary tract infections).
The curse, unfortunately, lies in the loss of experiential knowledge. In traditional herbal medicine, there have always been so-called "mediator plants" that did not help directly against a condition (e.g., cough) but enhanced the overall effectiveness through still unknown factors. For example, there are interesting studies on licorice root that show how various formulations yielded better results after the addition of licorice, even though licorice itself did not have a direct effect on the conditions for which it was used.

Various Forms of Preparation

So, what can you do with medicinal plants?

The simplest and most honest form is always to eat them – though, of course, with caution if you don’t know whether the plant is poisonous or not! With plants, you can quickly discern if it is bitter (like wormwood), astringent (e.g., tormentil), aromatic (like lavender and lemon balm), or herbaceous (e.g., cinquefoil). Interestingly, "weeds" are even experiencing a resurgence in fine dining. Yarrow, plantain, and others are being rediscovered by Michelin-starred chefs, which is undoubtedly a positive trend in reintroducing these valuable plants and flavors into daily diets.

If you dry your herbs from the garden in a dry, airy place, you can enjoy them all winter long. But be careful! When you drink tea made from dried herbs, you are consuming "drugs"! Yes, indeed. However, there is no need to worry about legal consequences here. In fact, the word "drug" comes from the pharmaceutical world and simply means "dried." 😉

The next forms of preparation would be infusions and decoctions. An infusion is what we know as tea preparation. A certain amount of fresh or dried herb is typically steeped in hot water for a few minutes, strained, and then drunk. A special form would be the cold infusion, which is commonly used for mucilaginous plants like marshmallow and mallow, or for mistletoe. In this case, the herb is soaked in cold water overnight, strained, and then gently warmed before drinking.
Finally, there is the decoction, where herbs such as horsetail or oak bark are boiled for several minutes.

As some active ingredients are not water-soluble, there are alcoholic tinctures. Here, medicinal plants are extracted individually or as a formulation in alcohol, as is the case with wild garlic essence and cilantro essence. (We’ll learn more about special forms in spagyric medicine). For home use, vodka, double grain, or grappa has proven to be effective instead of medicinal alcohol. The alcohol content should be around 40% by volume. Typically, 3 x 10 to 3 x 30 drops of a tincture are taken, diluted in water, used as a mouthwash, or applied externally, as is known with rubbing alcohol.

Another traditional method of processing plants is oil extraction. Here, plants, such as St. John's wort, are dried slightly for a day or two and then placed in a base oil. Slight drying prevents mold formation on the surface. After about three weeks, depending on the contents, the oil is ready, either aged in a cool and dark place or in a sunny and warm one. Oil extracts can be used internally, externally, or for oral care.

A very beautiful but unfortunately no longer widely practiced method is fumigation. Here, dried plant parts are placed on charcoal and burned. It’s a simple and pleasant way to cleanse your home. A house fumigated with lavender still carries a subtle lavender scent in the air a week later. Of course, ready-made incense sticks or cones can also be used, but you should make sure they are of high purity and free of artificial fragrances.

Speaking of scent, the fascinating world of essential oils awaits discovery, which we’ll explore in a separate chapter. Here's a hint: Essential oils (not cheap fragrance and perfume oils) can do more than just make a room smell nice.
Other methods of preparation, such as powdering or tablet-making, are less suited for home use and are typically left to manufacturers of medicines and supplements.

Benefits and Effects of Medicinal Plants

Finally, we come to the effects of medicinal plants. Since we will also be looking at other forms of plant preparation later, it makes sense to distinguish between the various modes of action.

In rational phytotherapy, this has been briefly touched upon. The classic preparations of medicinal plants, especially tablets, capsules, and alcoholic tinctures, mainly act through their active ingredients. They are essentially a chemical process, much like conventional medicine. Well-known drugs such as aspirin, digitoxin, and others are based on plant compounds. The inspiration for aspirin came from willow bark and its salicylic acids, while the red foxglove, with its heart-strengthening poison, provided the basis for digitoxin. Since a specific active ingredient could be identified in these plants as responsible for the effect (as opposed to St. John's wort, where this has never been achieved, as you have already learned), they were chemically synthesized for reasons of effort and cost.
Whether chemically synthesized variants are truly better from a holistic perspective is another question worth discussing, as pure digitoxin caused toxic effects much earlier than the same amount of digitoxin from a whole-plant extract. Aspirin (ASA) is also known for its stomach-damaging effects and is therefore somewhat controversial in stroke prevention, whereas willow bark extracts only convert to acetylsalicylic acid at the site of inflammation and do not act in the stomach.

Conclusion

Ultimately, medicinal plants are a good entry point for anyone with a little layman's knowledge to use in their kitchen and home pharmacy. There are good books to read or excellent courses for laypeople or more medically versed individuals, such as those offered by the Phytaro School of Herbal Medicine in Dortmund.

At the beginning, it was said that medicinal plants might be part of a particular lifestyle, in addition to their purely therapeutic use. By consciously choosing a plant-based diet, growing your own salads and vegetables on a balcony or in a raised bed, having flowers in the house and occasionally placing beautiful bouquets in the living room or on the dining table, planting wildflower meadows on unused parts of your property, making flower crowns for your hair, fumigating, or spending more time in the forest among trees and letting nature take effect on you – by intensively engaging with plants and surrounding yourself with them, you will find that plants are more than just chemical compounds that can be variously prepared and used pharmaceutically. If the men don’t quite know what I mean: Just buy your loved one a beautiful bouquet of flowers and watch her face and eyes when you hand it to her!