15. Medicinal
herbs
In
former times people used herbs to make medicines
for themselves and their animals. They knew many
useful herbs
growing in the fields, or in the herbal gardens of
castles and monasteries. The knowledge – now gone – stayed
in the community from generation to generation
Many herbs still owe their names to the use of popular
methods of treatment in former days, like lungwort – used
for lung disease because the leaves look a little like
lungs.
ore
recently scientific research showed that many of these herbs
do contain effective chemicals. For instance foxglove (Digitalis)
was used effectively against dropsy. It is still used to
make medicines for the heart. In other cases the herb is
displaced by synthetic chemicals mimicking the natural: aspirin
contains salicylic acid from Salix = willow. The bark of
willows was used against head ache already centuries ago.
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