Papaya - a world class meat tenderizer, natural digestive aid, prevents ulcers, and also a soft contact lense cleaner.Sage
Herb for the Wise
Family: Labiatae; (includes Mints)
Genus and Species: Salvia Officinalis
Also known as: Garden, Meadow, Spanish, Greek, or Dalmatian Sage
Parts used: Leaves
Close your eyes and imagine Thanksgiving turkey stuffing. Chances are the warm, rich aroma comes from sage. Thousands of years before the Pilgrims stuffed the first Thanksgiving turkey, people all over the world were celebrating the Healing powers of this aromatic herb. The generic name for sage, Salvia, comes from the Latin word meaning “to heal.”
Sage was used to treat so many maladies, it gained a reputation as a panacea, prompting herb expert Varro Tyler, Ph.D., to write: “If one consults enough herbals … every sickness known to humanity will be listed as being cured by sage.” Sage is no cure-all, but research shows this herb has some value as an antiperspirant, preservative, wound treatment, and digestive aid.
The Immortality Herb
The ancient Greeks and Romans first used sage as a meat preservative. They also believed it could enhance memory, like another powerful preservative, rosemary. But sage gained a much broader medicinal reputation. The Roman naturalist Pliny prescribed it for snakebite, epilepsy, intestinal worms, chest ailments, and menstruation promotion. The Greek physician Dioscorides considered it a diuretic and menstruation promoter and recommended sage leaves as bandages for wounds.
Around the l Oth century, Arab physicians believed sage extended life to the point of immortality. After the Crusades, this belief showed up in Europe, where students at the medieval world’s most prestigious medical school in Salerno, Italy, recited: “Why should a man die who grows sage in his garden?” The same thought evolved into a medieval English proverb: “He that would live foraye [forever] - Must eat sage in May.”
The French called the herb toute bonne, “all’s well.” and had their own adage: “Sage helps the nerves, and by its powerful might/Palsy is cured and fever put to flight.” Charlemagne ordered sage grown in the medicinal herb gardens on his imperial farms.
Widely Prescribed
Around the year 1000, an Icelandic herbal recommended sage for bladder infections and kidney stones. German abbess/herbalist Hildegard of Bingen prescribed sage for headache and gastrointestinal and respiratory ailments from the common cold to tuberculosis.
During the 16th century, Dutch explorers introduced sage to the Chinese, who prized it so highly they gladly traded 3 pounds of their own tea for each pound of the new European healer. Chinese physicians used sage to treat insomnia, depression, gastrointestinal distress, mental illness, menstrual complaints, and nipple inflammation (mastitis) in nursing mothers.
India’s traditional Ayurvedic physicians used Indian sage similarly. They also prescribed it for hemorrhoids, gonorrhea, vaginitis, and eye disorders.
Herbalist John Gerard called sage “singularly good forthe head and brain. It quickeneth the senses and memory, strengtheneth the sinews, restoreth health to those that have palsy, and taketh away shaky trembling of the members.” Seventeenth-century English herbalist Nicholas Culpeper seconded Gerard, and recommended sage “boiled in water or wine to wash sore mouths and throats, cankers, or the secret parts [genttals] of man or woman.”
America Embraces the Herb
Colonists introduced sage into North America, where it was widely used by folk healers to treat insomnia, epilepsy, measles, seasickness, and intestinal worms.
America’s 19th-century Eclectics used sage primarily to treat fever. They also prescribed sage poultices for arthritis and the tea as “a valuable anaphrodisiac I sexual depressant I to check excessive venereal desires … used in connection with moral … and other aids, if necessary.”
As late as the 1920s, U.s. medical texts recommended sage tea as a gargle for sore throat and sage leaf poultices for sprains and swellings.
Modern herbalists recommend sage externally for wounds and insect bites, as a gargle for bleeding gums, sore throat, laryngitis, tonsillitis, and in an infusion to reduce perspiration, terminate milk production, and treat dizziness, depression, menstrual irregularity, and intestinal upsets.