Herbs & Herbal Remedies @ Green Papaya

Tried and True

Family: Labiatae; (includes Mints)

Genus and Species: Thymus Vulgaris, T. Serpyllum

Also known as: Common or garden thyme (T. Vulgaris); Wild, Creeping, Mother, and mother of Thyme (T. Serpyllum)

Parts used: Leaves and flower tops

Parsley, sage, rosemary, and Listerine? Or perhaps Vicks Vaporub. Thyme is commonly found in the kitchen herb cabinet, but millions of Americans stock this herb’s oil in their medicine chest as well. Its use in mouthwashes and decongestants is no coincidence. Thyme has a long history of use as an antiseptic, cough remedy, and digestive aid,

Herbed Sacrificial Lamb

Like several other aromatic kitchen herbs, thyme was used as a meat preservative in ancient times, It was sprinkled on sacrificial animals to make them more acceptable to the gods. Thyme was introduced into cooking as an offshoot of its meatpreserving action. The Romans also used it medicinally as a cough remedy, digestive aid, and treatment for intestinal worms.

Charlemagne ordered thyme grown in all his imperial gardens for both its culinary and medicinal value. Medieval German abbess/herbalist Hildegard of Bingen considered it the herb of choice for skin problems, anticipating its later use as an antiseptic.

Signs of Courage

During the Middle Ages, thyme became linked to courage. it was fashionable for noblewomen to embroider sprigs of thyme on scarves and give them to favorite knights departing for the Crusades.

As the centuries passed, thyme was used as an antiseptic during plagues, and those troubled by “melancholia” (depression) were advised to sleep on thyme-stuffed pillows.

Early anatomists named the lymph gland in the chest the thymus because it reminded them of a thyme flower.

Sixteenth-century herbalist John Gerard recommended thyme for leprosy and to “cure sciatica … pains in the head … [and] falling sickness [epilepsy].”

Later. English herbalist Nicholas Culpeper called thyme “excellent for nervous disorders … headaches … and a certain remedy for that troublesome complaint. the nightmare.” He claimed it “provokes the terms I menstruation I, gives safe and speedy delivery to women in travail [labor], and brings away the after-birth.” Culpeper also recommended thyme as “a noble strengthener of the lungs … an excellent remedy for shortness of breath … It purges the body of phlegm … comforts the stomach much and expels wind.”

Thymol Antiseptic Oil

By the late 17th century, apothecary shops were selling thyme oil as a topical antiseptic under the name oil of origanum. in 1719, German chemist Caspar Neumann extracted thyme oil’s active constituent which he called camphor of thyme. In 1853, French chemist M. Lallemand named it thymol, its name today.

From the mid-19th century through World War I, thymol enjoyed great popularity as an antiseptic. The American Eclectic physicians’ text, King’s American Dispensatory, extolled it: “Thymol is considered by many to be superior to carbolic acid I the antiseptic made famous in 1867 by the father of antiseptic surgery, Joseph Lister}. It prevents putrefaction and arrests it when it has commenced … Dissolved in water, it forms an invaluable disinfectant [fori sick rooms.” The Eclectics also prescribed thyme infusion for headache, gastrointestinal upsets, “hysteria” (menstrual cramps), and as a menstruation promoter.

World War Crisis

World War I caused a major thymol crisis. Most of the world’s supply was distilled in Germany, and when the British and French declared war on Germany, they had to scramble to overcome a terrible shortage of the suddenly vital battlefield antiseptic.

Thymol has since been replaced by more potent germ fighters, but it remains an ingredient in several antiseptic mouthwashes, including Listerine.

Contemporary herbalists recommend thyme externally for wound disinfection and internally for indigestion, sore throat, laryngitis, cough, whooping cough, and nervousness.

Fame and Simon & Garfunkel

While somewhat off-topic thyme found 20th century fame in the arts by song writers Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel. The herb made fame through a song Scarborough Fair/Canticle and a reworking of Simon’s 1963 song “The Side of a Hill” with new, anti-war lyrics. It was the title track of the 1966 album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, and was released as a single after featuring on the soundtrack to The Graduate in 1968.

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.
Remember me to one who lives there.
She once was a true love of mine.
Tell her to make me a cambric shirt,
(a hill in the deep forest green)
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme;
(tracing of sparrow on snow-crested brown)
Without no seams nor needle work,
(blankets and bedclothes the child of the mountain)
Then she’ll be a true love of mine.
(sleeps unaware of the clarion call)

Tell her to find me an acre of land,
(on the side of a hill a sprinkling of leaves)
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme;
(washes the grave with silvery tears)
Between the salt water and the sea strand,
(a soldier cleans and polishes a gun)
Then she’ll be a true love of mine.
(sleeps unaware of the clarion call)

Tell her to reap it with a sickle of leather,
(war bellows blazing in scarlet battalions)
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme;
(general order their soldiers to kill)
And gather it all in a bunch of heather,
(and to fight for a cause they’ve long ago forgotten)
Then she’ll be a true love of mine.

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.
Remember me to one who lives there.
She once was a true love of mine.