Papaya - a world class meat tenderizer, natural digestive aid, prevents ulcers, and also a soft contact lense cleaner.Coltsfoot
World’s Oldest Cough Remedy
Family: Compositae; (includes Daisy, Dandelion, Marigold)
Genus and Species: Tussilago Farfara
Also known as: Cough plant Coughwort, Horse Hoof, Horse Foot
Parts used: Leaves, flowers
Coltsfoot has been a cough-suppressing mainstay of Asian and European herbal medicine for 2,000 years. And it’s still widely used today In addition to using the herb to treat cough, Chinese physicians have long prescribed it for asthma, colds, flu, bronchial congestion, and even lung cancer.
India’s traditional Ayurvedic doctors prescribed powdered coltsfoot in the form of snuff to treat cough, headache, and nasal congestion.
For cough and asthma, the ancient Greek physician Dioscorides and the Romans Pliny and Galen recommended a coltsfoot treatment that today sounds ridiculous-smoking the herb. But this approach continued for more than 1.500 years.
With characteristic exaggeration, 17th-century English herbalist Nicholas Culpeper touted coltsfoot not only for “wheezings, shortness of breath, and coughing,” but also for fevers, inflammations, and burning in the “privy parts” (genitals).
Apothecary Signs
In Paris around the time of the French Revolution, coltsfoot was so popular that signs bearing its golden flowers were the standard symbol hung outside apothecary shops.
Colonists introduced coltsfoot into North America, and the Indians adopted it as a cough remedy. For whooping cough, the colonists soaked blankets in buckets of hot coltsfoot infusion and wrapped them around the ill person. The 19th-century American Eclectic physicians prescribed coltsfoot for all respiratory problems and digestive upsets.
Contemporary herbalists recommend the herb for respiratory problems. Some say poultices of the fresh, bruised leaf may be applied to burns, swellings, and inflammations.