Papaya - a world class meat tenderizer, natural digestive aid, prevents ulcers, and also a soft contact lense cleaner.Elecampane
Good-bye, Intestinal Parasites
Family: Compositae; (includes Daisy, Dandelion, Marigold)
Genus and Species: Inula Helenium
Also known as: Wild Sunflower, Velvet Dock, Scabwort, Horse Heal
Parts used: Root
Legend has it that Helen of Troy carried a handful of elecampane on the fateful day the Trojan prince, Paris, abducted her from Sparta, igniting the Trojan War. Perhaps the woman whose face launched 1,000 ships had amoebic dysentery, pinworms, hookworms, or giardiasis. We’ll probably never know. But we do know the herb with the Latin name that memorializes the Greek beauty may help expel parasites from the intestine.
“Let No Day Pass”
Hippocrates said elecampane stimulated the brain, kidneys, stomach, and uterus. The ancient Romans used it to treat indigestion. The Roman naturalist Pliny wrote: “Let no day pass without eating some roots of elecampane to help digestion, expel melancholy, and cause mirth.” And the Roman physician Galen recommended the herb as “good for passion of the hucklebone [sciatica].”
Traditional Chinese and Indian Ayurvedic physicians used elecampane to treat respiratory problems, particularly bronchitis and asthma.
Used on Horses and Sheep
During the Middle Ages, European herbalists prescribed elecampane to treat coughs, bronchitis, and asthma, but the herb was more popular as a veterinary medicine. It was reputed to cure scab disease in sheep, hence one popular name, scabwort It was also considered a panacea for horses, and for that reason it was also known as horseheal.
As time passed, elecampane regained its reputation as a human digestive aid. It was the main ingredient in a medieval elixir known as potio Paulina, an allusion to St. Paul.
Seventeenth-century London herbalist Nicholas Culpeper touted elecampane “to relieve cough, shortness of breath, and wheezing in the lungs.” Echoing Galen, he also suggested the herb for sciatica, and claimed it restored vision and cured gout, sores, and “worms in the stomach.”
Elecampane root was also candied and eaten as a confection. Lozenges combining elecampane and honey were used to treat whooping cough (pertussis).
Popular in the New World
Early American colonists naturalized elecampane and used it as an expectorant. digestive aid, menstruation promoter, and diuretic for treatment of the water retention associated with “dropsy” (congestive heart failure) Indian tribes in the Northeast adopted the plant for respiratory problems.
America’s 19th-century Eclectic physicians also used elecampane as a diuretic and menstruation promoter, but prescribed it primarily for “asthma, bronchial and chronic pulmonary [lung] affections, weakness of the digestive organs, itching, dyspepsia [indigestion], night sweats, and severe colds.”
Present-day herbalists generally recommend elecampane only for respiratory ailments: cough, asthma, bronchitis, and emphysema. Some recommend it as a digestive aid, as a treatment for menstrual and skin problems, and to banish intestinal parasites.