Herbal Antibiotics: Natural Alternatives for Treating Drug-Resistant Bacteria (55 page)

At the same time, as you first begin the treatment with the powder, take 1 teaspoon of the berberine plant tincture three times daily for 15 days. And … take 1 tablespoon honey six times daily for 30 days.

Suppositories can be made from powdered herbs to treat things such as vaginal infections and hemorrhoids. I have recommended the use of echinacea suppositories for abnormal Pap smears for many years; they work very well. The powdered herbs are combined with enough liquid to make them hold together, be shaped properly, and be inserted.

Echinacea angustifolia
root

Vegetable glycerine

Flour

Usnea tincture

Calendula tincture

Powder the echinacea root as finely as you can, then mix it with enough vegetable glycerine to bring it to the consistency of cookie dough. At this point it will still be a bit sticky, so mix it with enough flour (any kind—chlorella or spirulina can also be used) to bring it to the consistency of bread dough. Once you have, take a bit of the
mix and press it into the shape of a suppository, about the size of your thumb. Repeat until you've used up all the mixture. Place the suppositories on a tray and put them in the freezer. They won't freeze; they will remain pliable but manageable.

Each evening, after you are in bed, place one suppository up against the cervix. The next morning, use a douche made from a mix of equal parts usnea and calendula tinctures, ½ ounce in 1 pint water (otherwise the remains of the suppository will drip out throughout the day—messy). Repeat every day for 14 days.

Some herbs are particularly potent if used fresh and taken internally. The most obvious form of this is food. Our ancestors ate several hundred plants over the course of the year, most of them wildcrafted. Our bodies are used to it and in many respects a number of our diseases come from the lack of wild plants in our diets. Nearly all plants can be eaten for food and their medicinal constituents then become a part of the regular diet. I won't go into that in any depth here but do want to mention a few herbs that really are best if used fresh, primarily when juiced.

Ginger, of course, is only strongly effective if used fresh and the best way to do that is to juice the plant. (See the ginger monograph on
page 227
for more.) The fresh leaf juices from bidens and
Artemisia annua
are also much more potent than using the plants in their dried form. And, of course, the fresh juice of
Echinacea purpurea
is part of standard-practice medicine in Germany. Some of the other plants that possess particularly potent medicinal juices are cabbage and plantain.

Cabbage is particularly high in S-methylmethionine (SMM)—it used to be called vitamin U. (This substance is also strongly present in malted barley.) SMM is exceptionally effective in healing and protecting the GI tract from ulceration and inflammation. It is present in its most active form, and at the highest concentrations, in fresh cabbage juice. One of the best combinations for treating irritable bowel syndrom, Crohn's disease, or ulceration in the GI tract is the juice from
one piece of cabbage about the size of a carrot and six leaves of plantain. (I prefer to also add the juice of two carrots, one beet, and four stalks of celery.)

Although the juicing of fruits and vegetables has a long history, there are few people exploring the use of medicinal plant juices in any depth. It is a very open field with a lot of potential for development. Many of the plants are much stronger if their fresh juice is used.

You can juice the plants, then stabilize the juice with the addition of 20 percent alcohol by volume. That is, if you have 5 ounces of juice, you would add 1 ounce of pure grain alcohol to keep the juice from spoiling. The juice can then be dispensed much like a tincture, though in somewhat larger doses.

Essential oils are made by distilling volatile oils from plants. From 0.5 percent to 5 percent of a plant's weight is composed of volatiles, or what we call essential oils. Most plants tend toward the lower end of that scale. To get an idea of how much plant it takes to make an essential oil: If a plant has 1 percent essential oil, it will take 100 ounces of the plant (a little over 6 pounds) to get 1 ounce of essential oil.

To make essential oils, distillation is necessary. In recent years a number of herbalists have begun to reclaim home distilling in order to make their own essential oils, but most of us just buy them already made.

Essential oils are used as medicine, mainly, in three ways: 1) placed directly on the skin, sometimes diluted, sometimes not; 2) inhaled (i.e., aromatherapy); and 3) in minute doses internally.

Essential oils move through the skin fairly easily. Lateral epicondylitis (a.k.a., tennis elbow) is a very painful and often debilitating inflammation of the nerve in the elbow, usually from repeated stress on the joint. Birch essential oil, rubbed on the area and about 5 inches around it, will usually reduce both the inflammation and the pain within 15 minutes. (It takes months for it to heal, but this does help immensely.)

Essential oils can be added to hot water and inhaled as steams or added to water and used as nasal sprays, for instance.

It
is
possible to take essential oils internally, but great caution should be exercised. Because so much plant matter is used to make an essential oil, these oils are incredibly potent. If you were foolish enough to take a whole ounce of essential oil by mouth—a very, very bad idea—you would be consuming 6 pounds of a medicinal plant in a form that would go into the bloodstream almost instantly. This is why essential oils are greatly diluted when put into formulations, used in diffusers, or taken internally in tiny, tiny doses (from one to five drops at a time). Generally, for internal use, I stick to things like peppermint oil, one drop at a time, for severe indigestion.

Children's bodies are much smaller than adults' and if you are using herbal medicines with them, you need to adjust the dosages. You can determine the dosages for children through one of three approaches:

Clark's Rule:
Divide the weight in pounds by 150 to give an approximate fraction of an adult's dose. For a 75-pound child the dose would be 75 divided by 150, or half the adult dose. (This is the one I find most useful.)

Cowling's Rule:
The age of a child at his or her next birthday divided by 24. For a child coming 8 years of age, the dose would be 8 divided by 24, or one-third the adult dose.

Young's Rule:
The child's age divided by (12 + age of child). For a 3-year-old it would be 3 divided by (12 + 3; that is, 15) for a dose of one-fifth the adult dose.

Most childhood ear infections can be treated successfully with herbs. Tinctures, glycerites, honeys, teas, and herbal steams are all effective approaches.

Children are most susceptible to ear infections from antibiotic-resistant strains of
Haemophilus influenzae
,
Staphylococcus aureus
,
Streptococcus pneumoniae
, and
Branhamella catarrhalis
. These kinds of treatment plans have been found highly effective for treating them, individually or together.

5 cloves garlic

4 ounces olive oil

20 drops eucalyptus essential oil

Chop garlic finely, place in small baking dish with olive oil, cook over low heat overnight, and strain, pressing cloves well. Add essential oil of eucalyptus to garlic oil and mix well. Place in amber bottle for storage. To use: Hold glass eyedropper under hot water for 1 minute, dry well (quickly), and suction up ear oil from bottle. Place 2 drops in both ears every half hour or as often as needed for 2 to 7 days.

1 ounce elder flower (
Sambucus
spp.)

1 ounce licorice root

1 ounce Mormon tea (
Ephedra viridis
)

1 ounce peppermint leaf

1 ounce rose hips

1 quart water Wildflower honey (optional)

Roughly crush all herbs. Bring water to a near boil, then pour over the herbs and allow to steep until cooled enough to drink. Consume as hot as is comfortable for drinking. Sweeten with honey if desired. As much as is wanted can be consumed. The Mormon tea is a decongestant, the rose hips are slightly astringent and anti-inflammatory and high in vitamin C, the elder flowers are slightly sedative and reduce fevers, the licorice root is anti-inflammatory and tastes good and is antiviral and antibacterial, and the peppermint helps reduce fevers and decongests and is calming. Catnip can be added to help lower fever.

1 ounce echinacea tincture

1 ounce ginger tincture

1 ounce licorice tincture

1 ounce red root tincture

Mix together the tinctures. Give one full dropper (30 drops) of the mixture each hour per 150 pounds of body weight until symptoms cease. Best administered in juice. Dosage should be altered for the child's weight. Eucalyptus and sage tinctures can also be used. You can also prepare this as a glycerite or a medicinal honey.

Children are also susceptible to diarrheal infections from
E. coli
O157:H7 bacteria and antibiotic-resistant strains of
Shigella dysentariae
. When they get extremely ill with these bacteria, they may also experience high fever and diarrhea. The berberine plants are the best for this.

The best herb for lowering seriously high fevers is coral root (
Corallorhiza maculata
), as either a tea or tincture. One teaspoon of the root steeped in 8 ounces hot water for 30 minutes and drunk or up to 30 drops tincture for a child of 60 pounds. Brigitte Mars's herbal tea for ear infections (page 360), with the addition of catnip, is also exceptionally effective in lowering fevers. Finally, bathing with cool water will also work very well.

The use of a tea and tincture combination together is usually effective.

3 parts blackberry root

2 parts slippery elm bark

Mix the herbs together (for example, 3 ounces blackberry root and 2 ounces slippery elm bark). Simmer 1 teaspoon of the herb mixture in 1 cup water for 20 minutes. Strain and cool. Take 2 to 4 tablespoons every hour or as often as needed.

1 ounce acacia tincture

1 ounce berberine plant tincture

1 ounce cryptolepis tincture

1 ounce evergreen needle tincture

Combine the tinctures, and shake well. Give 1 full dropper (30 drops) for every 150 pounds of body weight every 1 to 2 hours in water or orange juice until symptoms cease.

You, more than anyone else ever will, know how you are feeling in your body. Pay close attention to how you respond to any medicines you take. If you don't feel right when you take an herbal medicine, stop taking it.

All the technical information has been stolen from reliable sources and I am happy to stand behind it.

—
Edward Abbey

When making herbal tinctures
you need to know the proportion of water to alcohol—among other things.
Everyone
needs a handy list of medicinal plants and their tincture requirements. This list won't have every plant you will ever need on it, but it does have many of them.