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| PURPLE LOOSESTRIFE |
Purple
loosestrife offers great potential as a valuable and practically useful
medicinal, possessing an admirable balance of astringent and mucilaginous properties.
This may seem odd if you think of astringents as being drying and mucilage as
being moistening, but remember that astringents do not dehydrate tissues, they
tighten and restore tone to them, and in doing they lessen over-secretion.
So purple loosestrife restores tone to tissues while also bathing them in a
soothing mucilage, which eases inflammation and ensures lubrication. People
also use purple loosestrife as a tea for diarrhea, intestinal problems, and
bacterial infections. They also use it for swelling and as a drying
agent and women use it for menstrual problems. I find that including more leaves and stems
in preparations yields a more astringent medicine, while collecting mostly the
flowering spikes increases the presence of mucilage in water based preparations.
Purple loosestrife is sometimes applied directly to the affected area for swollen (varicose) veins, bleeding gums, hemorrhoids and eczema.
Purple loosestrife is sometimes applied directly to the affected area for swollen (varicose) veins, bleeding gums, hemorrhoids and eczema.
Gravel root has many common names to indicate both its botanical appearance and also its medicinal uses. It is called Queen of the meadow because it stands so high and the purple hue of its flowers make it somewhat majestic in appearance. It is called Joe Pye weed because one native American of that name used it extensively in his practice. It is called Gravel root because it has the ability to remove and to a certain degree dissolve kidney stones or gravel. It is a member of the large boneset family of herbs, many of which are well none for their medicinal value. Gravel root is underused in medicine today because most people just think of it for removing kidney stones and overlook its other uses especially in the genito-urinary tract of women. Gravel should be thought of in all disorders of the urinary tract. It is a very efficient diuretic and is indicated in bed wetting. Gravel root is useful in pregnancy when a cough dispels urine.
I have had excellent success with gravel root for its use in the reproductive disorders of women because of its ability to tone and restore balance to the uterous. It specifically refers to its use in retro version, prolapsus, introversion, etc, all conditions where dysplasia has occurred. Gravel root is very safe and the dosage can be increased according to the condition. For normal diuretic use the dosage of 15 to 30 drops is usually very helpful. In our experience the dosage in quantity is not the most important aspect of medical application, but the frequency of dosage. The normal dosage of 15 to 30 drops, probably the 30 drops would be minimum for an adult and should be repeated as many as 6 times a day in acute conditions. This will result in a much more active result and hasten the healing. Gravel root has no toxicity so the dosage can be quite large without fear.
Here is one healer's experience with Gravel Root: "This could be a cause of sterility and that condition is what I originally had success in with Gravel root. I combined it with black cohosh and squaw vine in a case of long standing sterility with good success. This is a well documented case where the lady was under the care of an expert midwife and much effort had failed. I personally knew the lady and while contemplating her situation remembered her having a car wreck where she broke her hip among other things. Although the accident was many years removed, when reading about sterility caused by dysplasia and similar conditions, I thought that this might be the cause of sterility in this case, as she was otherwise a very health conscious person who had tried all available means. After taking the Gravel root about a month or two she conceived. The midwife was convinced that it made the difference. Since I have used it in many cases and thus far have always been satisfied.
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