Papaya - a world class meat tenderizer, natural digestive aid, prevents ulcers, and also a soft contact lense cleaner.Motherwort
Tranquilizer and Stimulant
Family: Labiatae; (include mints)
Genus and Species: Leonurus Cardiaca
Also known as: Lion’s Tail, Heartwort
Parts used: Leaves, flowers, stems
Motherwort is a misleading name for this Healing herb. The herb is more likely to prevent motherhood than promote it. And despite one of its popular names, lion’s tail, motherwort won’t strengthen the lion-hearted. In fact, it’s more apt to turn lions into lambs.
Good Cheer and Long Life
The ancient Greeks and Romans used motherwort for both physical and emotional problems of the heart-palpitations and depression.
In ancient China, motherwort was reputed to promote longevity. According to legend, a youth was banished from his village for a minor crime to a remote valley with a spring surrounded by motherwort. He supposedly lived to be 300.
In Europe, motherwort first became known as a treatment for cattle diseases. Sixteenth-century herbalist John Gerard called it “a remedy against certain diseases in cattell. . and for that husbandmen much desire it.” Gerard also recommended it for “infirmities of the heart.”
Seventeenth-century English herbalist Nicholas Culpeper wrote: “There is no better herb to take meloncholy vapors from the heart … and make a merry, cheerful soul.” Culpeper viewed this herb primarily as an antidepressant; however, he mentioned, “it is … of much use in trembling of the heart [palpitations], and faintings, and swoonings, from whence it took the name cardiaca …. It took the name motherwort [because] it settles mothers’ wombs … and is a wonderful help to women in their sore travail [delivery] …. It also provoketh women’s courses [menstruation].”
As the centuries passed, herbalists used motherwort in contradictory ways-both to relax the uterus during pregnancy and after childbirth, and to stimulate menstruation and labor. Eventually it came to be viewed as a uterine stimulant.
Colonists introduced motherwort into North America, and the 19th-century Eclectics recommended it as a menstruation promoter and aid to expelling the afterbirth. They also prescribed it as a tranquilizer for “morbid nervous excitement, and all diseases with restlessness [and] disturbed sleep.” The Eclectics did not consider it a heart remedy at all.
Contemporary herbalists recommend motherwort as a tranquilizer and for heart palpitations and delayed or suppressed menstruation.