by Matthew Wood
It seems natural to include a portrait of this herb in this corner of the book, due to its long association with depression. This became a “fad herb” in the 1980s for that condition. Usually I oppose fads in herbalism, but at the time I thought: “a fad could not have happened to a better herb.” Then the naysayers piled on—it was said to cause high blood pressure, which it does not do—and St. John’s wort was largely forgotten, except by us herbalists. Maybe that is for the best. It does enhance the breakdown of some drugs in the liver—meaning it is a liver detoxifier!—so it can’t be used with many prescription drugs. It helps the body metabolize them.
In my opinion, the herbalist who has the best Hypericum presentation is David Winston, and I would like to quote him from his wonderful work on adaptogens:
Each herb has a personality—a range of uses, activities, and specific qualities that make it appropriate, or not, for each person.… I believe you get the best results when you treat the patient rather than the disease.… St. John’s wort was used for melancholia, which to the Greeks meant that a person had an excess of the black bile. This caused fatigue, lethargy, indigestion, a dark outlook with a sense of emotional unease, and apathy. To a great degree, this describes the type of depression for which St. John’s wort is most effective—mild to moderate depression with a sour disposition and “sour stomach.” Think of Mr. Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. He goes to work every day, he eats, he goes through the motions, but he has no joy in his life. Think of this herb as being useful for people who are in the dark, living a shadow life. It opens the “emotional windows” and lets the sunlight in (Winston and Maimes 2008, 218).
Sleep and Dreams
Sleeplessness, Insomnia: • AMYGDALUS (restlessness) • Angelica (awake at night, groggy in morning) • Apium (nervous debility) • Aralia racemosa (awake at night, groggy in morning) • Artemisia absinthium (night terrors, seizures during sleep) • ARTEMISIA VULGARIS (night terrors) • Asarum canadense • Avena (long-term lack of sleep; nervousness; use long-term dosage) • Betonica (for sleep; fresh leaf) • Calendula (child afraid of the dark) • Caulophyllum (insomnia with uterine irritability) • Chamomilla (can’t relax, grouchy) • Chrysanthemum (insomnia) • Cimicifuga (with muscle pain) • Cinchona (restlessness, anxiety) • CINNAMOMUM CASSIA (insomnia; shallow, dream-disturbed sleep; muscle spasms—Huang) • Citrus aurantium (insomnia—Weiss) • Crataegus (falls asleep but wakes up) • ESCHSCHOLZIA (delicate sleeper; difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep) • Filipendula (hyperactivity, hyperthyroidism) • Ganoderma (neurasthenia) • Geranium (waking to pee) • HUMULUS (insomnia; excitement and worry; hops pillow or tea) • HYPERICUM (insomnia, sleepwalking; nightmares, night terrors, anxiety; kids imagining bad things in closets; “bad mojo”—Schnell) • LACTUCA (specific for mental overwork, negative thinking, hard, slow pulse; small doses for specificity; in large doses, it sedates most people, regardless of constitution) • Lamium • Lavendula (difficulty falling asleep) • Leonurus (nervousness, palpitations, menopausal insomnia) • Lycopodium (to calm thoughts; herb in pillow) • Lycopus (fearful, alert, hyperthyroid) • Matricaria • Melissa (difficulty falling asleep; insomnia due to nervous stomach) • Monarda fistulosa (pillow or tea) • Monarda punctata (nervous excitation) • Monotropa (from physical or mental pain) • Nepeta (restless sleep, nightmares) • Nymphaea (intense thoughts) • PASSIFLORA (circular thinking; difficulty falling asleep; menopause; grinding teeth) • Pedicularis • Piper methysticum (for sleep and dreaming) • Piscidia (“insomnia due to neuralgia or nervous tension”—BHP) • Pulsatilla • Primula (extreme restlessness, nervousness, excitability) • Rheum • Rhodiola (“lull-to-sleep root”—Iceland) • Rumex crispus (nervous stomach) • Scutellaria (sleeplessness, nightmares; with Verbena for sleepwalking) • SENECIO AUREUS (insomnia, menstrual) • Tilia (bath or tincture; insomnia from excitation) • Trifolium • UMBELLULARIA (contains the entheogenic substance DMT; improves sleep; semi-roasted nut) • VALERIANA (nonaddictive sedative) • Verbascum (waking to pee; nervous exhaustion) • Verbena (sleep-walking; with Scutellaria) • WITHANIA (habitual loss of sleep).
Grinding the Teeth: • Chamomilla • Passiflora • Scutellaria.
Dreams, Dream-disturbed Sleep: • Albizia (bad dreams) • Angelica (promotes dreaming) • Aralia racemosa (promotes dreaming) • Artemisia absinthium (night terrors, seizures during sleep) • ARTEMISIA VULGARIS (night terrors; stimulates dreaming) • Betonica (promotes sleep, dreams; fresh leaf) • Calendula (children afraid of the dark) • CINNAMOMUM CASSIA (insomnia, dream-disturbed sleep, muscle spasms) • HYPERICUM (insomnia, sleepwalking, nightmares, night terrors, anxiety, kids imagining bad things in closets, “bad mojo”—Schnell) • Nepeta (restless sleep, nightmares) • Paeonia (nightmares) • Piper methysticum (promotes sleep and dreaming) • Ruta (see Formulary, below) • Scutellaria (sleeplessness, nightmares; with Verbena, for sleepwalking) • THYMUS (nightmares) • Tilia • UMBELLULARIA (contains the entheogenic substance DMT; promotes spiritual dreams; semi-roasted nut) • Verbena (with Scutellaria, for sleepwalking).
FORMULARY
Melissa—Fresh-leaf tincture with honey and milk at night will “wash the whole hard day away”—Sedlacek.
Passiflora—with Primula and Humulus (insomnia). BHP 1983, 171.
Tilia—with Passiflora, Ganoderma, Lavandula (insomnia, bad dreams). D. Winston.
Verbena—with Scutellaria (sleepwalking).
PEACH LEAF (AMYGDALUS PERSICA)
In addition to being a remedy for insomnia, peach leaf tea is the traditional remedy in the South to give a person when delivering bad news or discipline—to “soften the blow,” as Phyllis Light told me. Everybody down there seemed to know about it, but I never heard or read about it in a book. If you don’t live there, you just have to have some Southern friends.
“When we were young, we called it BOB—bringer-of-bad news,” said Cherokee herbalist Sondra Boyd. “It meant a young person was going to get reprimanded by an elder.”
Thomas Easley brought the story up to date: “This has degenerated in the South to a peach branch you rip off to whop somebody. That’s called ‘peach leaf tea.’”
Brain and Head
The brain, just like any organ, needs to assimilate nutrition and then eliminate waste. When the brain gets constipated, this blockage and subsequent back-up of waste, toxins, sludge, schmutz, goo, plaque—whatever you want to call it—causes your brain to get congested, which can then cause a thousand diseases, from Alzheimer’s, senility, eye and hearing disorders to paralysis (Schulze 2011, 91).
The blood is too thick to directly feed the brain, so a sieve called the choroid plexus strains the blood, leaving the red blood cells behind and letting the rest into the ventricles of the brain, where it becomes the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). This starlight-like substance surrounds all brain and nerve tissue in the body, following the myelin sheaths to the ends of the nerves, spilling out into the extracellular matrix, then returning to the bloodstream via the lymphatic system.
However, before the blood even gets to the choroid plexus, the arteries can sclerose, the veins congest, the capillaries become clogged or fragile, etc. Therefore, in order to eliminate waste and assimilate nutrition, as Richard Schulze says, we need to keep the blood from coagulating or thickening (Achillea, Liriodendron); we need to stimulate the circulation to the brain (Rosmarinus, Gingko, Lavandula, Vinca), stimulate the nerves (Betonica, Acorus, Paeonia), drain the extracellular matrix (Ceanothus, Equisetum), and (most of all) keep the CSF flowing without encumbrance (Cimicifuga). Research coming out as this book goes to press shows that the brain has a lymphatic system suffused with immune cells. (How could it not?) Therefore, we should think of remedies for these systems as acting on the brain as well (Ceanothus, Galium, Echinacea, etc). The benefits of chiropractic, osteopathy, acupuncture, massage, yoga, and exercise (both cerebral and physical) cannot be underestimated.
Whenever there has been a head or spinal injury or stroke, give
yarrow (Achillea) immediately afterwards in order to prevent further nerve damage from congealed blood pressing on the nerves or blood seeping out of vessels. Congealed blood may remain for months or years after an injury; yarrow can still be used to remove it. If Arnica is available, it may be used instead.
Brain: • Acorus (cloudy thinking, difficulty processing language or learning new language) • Apium (exhaustion) • AVENA (exhaustion) • BETONICA (improves circulation; senility, injury, lack of groundedness) • CENTELLA (circulation) • Eleutherococcus • Gelsemium (homeopathic) • Gingko (circulation) • Ilex paraguariensis (increases oxygen to heart, brain; stimulates without causing nervousness) • Lycopodium (premature senility) • Medicago sativa (promotes mental clarity) • Panax quinquefolius (neurasthenia, loss of fluids, atrophy, debilitated habits, exhaustion of brain and nervous system) • Psilocybe (promotes neuroplasticity) • Trigonella (“loss of memory for words, confused ideas and other mental defects from functional causes”—Ellingwood) • Turnera (invigorates) • VINCA (sclerosis; increases cerebral circulation).
Note: Saturated fatty acids in the diet are also beneficial to the brain.
Head Injuries, Concussion, Stroke: • ACHILLEA (bruising, bleeding, pain, stroke, hematoma, thrombosis) • ACORUS • Aesculus hip. (concussion—Weiss) • APOCYNUM ANDROSAEMIFOLIUM (concussion, head injury, whether recent or long ago; 1-drop dose as needed) • ARNICA (homeopathic; shock, stroke) • Bacopa • BETONICA (concussion, hysteria, frenzy, stroke) • CALAMUS (mentally disjointed after head injury) • Carthamus (shock) • Hypericum (pain; convulsions following concussion) • Ocimum • PAEONIA (reorganizes the mind after head injury) • Pedicularis (strengthens cerebral vasculature—Boyd) • Ruta (blow to the head, stroke) • Scutellaria • Symphytum • Vinca (concussion) • Zanthoxylum (pain).
Headache (General): • Achillea (blood congestion) • Acorus (sinus headache, dull thinking) • Agrimonia (migraine, tension) • Apium (debilitation) • Asarum (sinus headache; can be used with Acorus) • Avena (back of head; exhaustion) • BETONICA (neurasthenic, nervous) • Centaurium • CHELIDONIUM (migraine, cluster, sensitivity to light) • Cichorium (heat and headache in children) • Chionanthus (with indigestion; gall bladder) • Cimicifuga (ocular) • Citrus limonum • Clematis (temples) • Cnicus (liver and digestion; frontal) • Cola (migraine, depression, muscular exhaustion) • Cornus (from fever) • Crataegus • Echinacea (fever) • Eupatorium perfoliatum (crushing pain in head) • Filipendula (nervous, restless) • Gentiana (from low blood pressure) • Glechoma • Hamamelis (from eyestrain) • Humulus • Hydrastis • Hypericum • Ilex paraguariensis (psychogenic headache and fatigue) • IRIS • Jeffersonia (with vertigo, asthenia) • LAVANDULA (oil on temples) • Leonurus • Levisticum (indigestion and hormonal) • Lobelia (band across forehead) • Mahonia (gall bladder, digestive dysfunction, following meals) • MELILOTUS (blood congestion) • Mentha piperita • Menyanthes (with indigestion, gall bladder) • Nepeta (nervous) • Passiflora (hypertension, nervous debility) • Pedicularis (tension) • Podophyllum (with liver stagnation, constipation; very small dose) • Polygonatum (occipital) • Phytolacca • Populus tremuloides (dyspeptic) • Primula vera (tea) • Prunella • Pulsatilla (“determination of blood to the head”—Scudder) • Rhodiola • Rosmarinus (hypertension, migraine) • Ruta (eyestrain) • Salvia • Satureja • Schisandra (hormonal, liver) • Scutellaria laterifolia (tension) • Sinapis nigra (in footbath) • Tanacetum balsamita • Tanacetum parthenium (general nonspecific; one fresh leaf daily) • Taraxacum • Tilia (heat, high blood pressure) • UMBELLULARIA (inner-orbital; inhalation of fresh leaf or tincture of leaf, but this can cause migraine too) • Verbena (tension in neck, cluster) • Veronicastrum (liver, indigestion) • Viburnum opulus (tension; PMS) • Vinca major • Viscum (hypertensive) • Vitex (frontal) • Zingiberis (with cold and cramp).
Headache (Tensive, Nervous, Neuralgic): • Agrimonia (migraine, tension) • Angelica (hypersensitive cranial nerves) • Apium • Avena (back of head; from exhaustion) • BETONICA (general headache remedy) • CHELIDONIUM (migraine, cluster, sensitivity to light; pain from back, to temples, to front of head) • Cimicifuga (ocular; with tight trapezius muscles) • CNICUS (infusion with honey) • HUMULUS • Hypericum • Ilex paraguariensis • Juglans • LAVANDULA (oil on temples) • Leonurus (hormonal) • Lobelia (band across forehead) • KRAMERIA • Mentha piperita • Nepeta • Passiflora (nervous debility, hypertension, with ringing in ears; chronic, in evenings, without hypoglycemia) • Pedicularis (tension) • Piscidia • Pulsatilla (small material dose) • Rosmarinus • Ruta (from eyestrain) • Schisandra (hormonal, liver) • Scutellaria laterifolia (starts in the eyes; tension) • Tanacetum parthenium (one fresh leaf daily) • Tilia (heat; high blood pressure) • UMBELLULARIA (inner-orbital; smell the leaf or tincture of the leaf, but this can cause migraine too) • Verbena (tension in nape of neck; cluster associated with shingles) • Veronicastrum (liver, indigestion) • Viburnum opulus (tension; PMS) • Vinca major • Viscum (hypertension) • Zingiberis (cold and cramp).
Headache (Menstrual, Hormonal): • Achillea • Acorus • Agrimonia • Avena (menopausal; occipital, reflex from uterus—Sherman) • Centaurium • Eupatorium perfoliatum (crushing pain in head) • Filipendula • Gentiana (from low blood pressure) • Glechoma • Leonurus • Levisticum (hormonal and digestive) • MELILOTUS • Mentha piperita • Nepeta (nervous) • Passiflora (nervous debility) • Pulsatilla (top of head) • Schisandra (hormonal, liver) • Tanacetum parthenium (one fresh leaf daily) • Veronicastrum (liver, indigestion) • Viburnum opulus (tension, PMS) • Vitex (frontal) • Zingiberis (cold and cramp; fresh rhizome tea or poultice).
Headache (Congestive, Unequal Distribution of Blood): • Achillea (blood congestion) • Crataegus • Hamamelis (from eyestrain) • LAVANDULA (oil on temples) • MELILOTUS (congestion, indigestion, throbbing sensations, nervousness; fresh-plant tincture, 3–5 drops in water; or herb vinegar, one teaspoon 4x/hour—Powell) • PULSATILLA (“determination of blood to the head”—Scudder) • Rosmarinus (with excess menstrual flow) • Ruta (eyestrain) • Sinapis nigra (to draw down “high blood”; footbath) • Tanacetum parthenium (preventive, in anabolic-dominant types) • Tribulus (hypertensive).
Note: Hot footbaths are recommended for menstrual or other headaches caused by rising heat or “high blood.”
Headache (Associated with Indigestion, Liver): • Acorus (sinus headache, dull thinking) • Agrimonia (migraine, tension) • BETONICA • Centaurium • CHELIDONIUM (migraine, cluster headache, sensitivity to light, back of head to temples to front; aggravated by gall-bladder stress) • Cichorium (heat and headache in children) • Chionanthus (with indigestion, following meals, gall bladder) • Cnicus (associated with liver and digestion; frontal) • Filipendula • Gentiana (from low blood pressure) • IRIS (hypoglycemic, worse from not eating; or due to leaky gut syndrome) • Mahonia (gall bladder, digestive dysfunction, following meals) • Majorana (nervous headache) • Mentha piperita • Menyanthes (migraine, indigestion, gall bladder) • Populus tremuloides (with dyspepsia; take before meals—M. Moore) • Rosmarinus • Sinapis nigra (in footbath, to draw down “high blood” or excess in upper regions) • Tanacetum balsamita (cooling; for liver/gallbladder headaches, after rich food, sometimes relieved by bowel movement) • Tanacetum parthenium (preventive, in anabolic-dominant thick types—M. Moore) • Veronicastrum (liver, indigestion).
Cerebral Circulation Impaired: • ACORUS • BETONICA • CENTELLA • Cnicus • GINGKO • LAVANDULA • Ocimum • ROSMARINUS • Salvia • Ustilago (weak innervation and circulation to the brain and spine; dizziness, unsteadiness) • VINCA (sclerosis—Weiss).
Head Lice: • Azadirachta (lice, fungus, eczema) • Delphinium staphisagria (toxic; external only) • Equisetum (wash) • Juglans nigra (leaf, wash; hull is contraindicated) • Nymphaea (needs confirmation).
Vertigo, Dizziness, Tinnitus, Ménière’s Disease: • Betonica • Cimicifuga • Crata
egus • Ganoderma • Gingko (dizziness, tinnitus) • Glechoma (middle-ear congestion) • Hydrastis (catarrhal deafness and tinnitus) • Leonurus • MONARDA FISTULOSA (tinnitus, Ménière’s disease) • Oxydendrum • Panax ginseng • Tanacetum parthenium • Tilia • Ustilago (poor circulation and innervation; dizziness, unsteadiness) • Verbena.
Fainting: • Achillea (sniff to revive) • Aletris • Chamomilla • Lavendula (oil, applied to side of head) • Rosmarinus (oil, applied to side of head).
Hair and Scalp: • AGRIMONIA (alopecia, local and universal; “always doing something with her hair,” “bad hair day”—Wood) • Apocynum cannabinum (external) • ARCTIUM (unhealthy scalp, hair loss; seed in oil externally, root internally) • Arnica (external) • Betula (external) • Capsicum (external) • Ceanothus (flowers; hair tonic, external) • Chamomilla (in rinse, for shine) • Chelidonium (external) • Cichorium (external) • EQUISETUM (thin hair, dandruff) • Juglans nigra (leaf, in lotion) • Lavendula (dry, itchy scalp, no dandruff; oil, external) • MEDICAGO (enhances hair growth) • PLANTAGO (external, on itching rash on back of head above occiput; indicates toxins in cerebellum and is associated with toxic colon—Fenton) • POLYGONUM MULTIFLORUM (internal) • POLYMNIA (hair tonic, external) • Rhodiola (hair wash) • Rosmarinus (dry, itchy scalp, no dandruff; oil, externally) • SASSAFRAS (oil for hair lice; topical use only) • Solidago (unhealthy scalp, scabs) • Urtica (eczema of scalp; brings back hair color and thickens; leaves or seeds, external and internal).
Sunstroke: • Achillea • Cactus (“tight sensation from sunstroke”—Clarke) • Chondrus • Lobelia • Hibiscus (preventive; cool tea) • MELILOTUS (Lakota “sunstroke medicine”; face intensely red, carotid arteries throbbing, relieved by nosebleed) • Melissa (sunstroke with irritability and belligerence) • MENTHA PIPERITA (sunstroke and exhaustion from heat) • Scutellaria • Tanacetum parthenium.