Herbs and Traditional Uses

Nowadays most commercial prescription medicines contain drugs synthesised from chemicals. Before the age of chemical synthesis people had to rely on medicines made from plants and other natural ingredients.

Look at this list of herbs and their traditional uses.

Bay

Elder

Horse Chestnut

Horse radish

Hyssop

Liquorice

Marshmallow

 

Meadowsweet

Mint

Poppies

Rosemary

Silver Birch

Thyme

Willowbark

Feverfew

Antiseptic, insecticide, relieves rheumatic pain.

Colds, catarrh, chest complaints.

Bark used to reduce fever.

Colds, coughs and catarrh, also used to treat boils.

Chest complaints, asthma, fever indigestion.

Coughs, chest complaints.

Soothes swollen areas, helps digestion, coughs, ulcers, whooping cough;

Also boils

Fevers, antiseptic.

Colds, diarrhoea.

Painkiller, coughs, diarrhoea, used to treat sprains and bruises.

Tonic to treat swellings, antiseptic gargle.

Common cold.

Indigestion, antiseptic, coughs

Painkiller, diarrhoea.

Migraine, general tonic, arthritis

 

 

Worksheet Herbs and Traditional Uses

Which herb or herbs do you think the Apothecary would have prepared to help a patient suffering from the following complaints?

Cough

Diarrhoea

Headache

Boils

Indigestion

Insect bites

Fever

Migraine

 

What might the Apothecary recommend?

 

For a patient who needed a general tonic?

 

 

 
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