Hands-On Healing Remedies: 150 Recipes for Herbal Balms, Salves, Oils, Liniments & Other Topical Therapies

451 Pages·2012·3.61 MB·English

by  Stephanie L. Tourles

Hands on Healing Remedies
150 Recipes for Herbal Balms, Salves, Oils, Liniments & Other Topical
Therapies
Stephanie L. Tourles
Illustrations by Samantha Hahn
The mission of Storey Publishing is to serve our customers by
publishing practical information that encourages
personal independence in harmony with the environment.
Edited by Deborah Balmuth and Lisa H. Hiley Art direction and book design by
Mary Winkelman Velgos Text production by Liseann Karandisecky Illustrations
by © Samantha Hahn, except for page 17 by Alison Kolesar Author’s
photograph by © Debra Bell Indexed by Andrea Chesman
© 2012 by Stephanie L. Tourles All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer
who may quote brief passages or reproduce illustrations in a review with
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The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our
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Printed in the United States by R.R. Donnelley 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tourles, Stephanie L.,
1962– Hands-on healing remedies / by Stephanie L. Tourles.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-61212-006-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-60342877-4 (e-
book) 1. Materia medica, Vegetable. 2. Naturopathy. I. Title.
book) 1. Materia medica, Vegetable. 2. Naturopathy. I. Title.
RS164.T684 2012
615.5’35—dc23
2012027705
To my dearest Bill — my husband, partner, and best friend. Your never-
ending energy, independent spirit, support, and encouragement uplift me in all
that I do. I treasure the boulder-lined garden you created for me, filled with
incredibly deep, dark, fertile, crumbly soil. It’s a garden beyond my wildest
dreams. My culinary and healing herbs thrive, the vegetable plants strain under
their heavy yields, and the flowers explode with vibrant colors … eliciting
curiosity from the neighbors, causing them to wonder if I have magical, quick-
fingered plant fairies who work in and maintain my massive “jungle of a
garden” under the cloak of darkness. It makes me chuckle. I cherish every
moment we have together on this incredible journey we call life, my dear Willy.
And in memory of “Mainie,” my 20-pound, middle-aged, semi-wild Maine
Coon cat who loved to sleep in my chamomile patch on warm late-spring
afternoons. When sick or injured, he’d let me feed him dropper after dropper of
chamomile tea, which zonked him right out and usually had him feeling better
within a matter of days. “Mainie” definitely chose German chamomile as his
herbal ally; unfortunately, it couldn’t protect him from cars.
acknowledgments
In writing this book, I’m indebted to the great herbal teachers and elders who
have shaped my “green education” over the years: Mrs. Ottie Faye Ashe and
Mrs. Eveline Pilkington, for sharing their handwritten herbal formulas with me,
many of which date back to the mid-nineteenth century; my grandfather Earl C.
Ashe, who initiated me into this healing world of herbalism; and my
grandmother Phenie S. Ashe, the possessor of the greenest thumb on earth.
Much gratitude goes out to Candis Cantin, Anne McIntyre, Rosemary Gladstar,
Deb Soule, and Michael Tierra, teachers with whom I’ve had a chance to study
varying traditions of herbal wisdom, namely Ayurvedic, Western, and Chinese.
I’ve been researching and formulating topical, plant-based healing recipes for
the past three decades, and I am indeed grateful to all of you who have
volunteered to be my “guinea pigs,” my live subjects on whom I was allowed to
test my herbal formulations and receive much valued feedback. And lastly,
thanks to Deborah Balmuth, my longtime, beloved editor, for giving me the
opportunity to share these healing remedies with you, my dear readers.
Contents
INTRODUCTION
Part 1 Making Your Own Healing Formulas
Chapter 1 AN INTRODUCTION TO TRADITIONAL HEALING
Chapter 2 THE HERBAL HOME APOTHECARY
Chapter 3 TOOLS OF THE TRADE
Part 2A Collection of Herbal Remedies
Alopecia (Balding)
Anxiety (Nervous Tension)
Arthritis (Osteoarthritis)
Athlete’s Foot
Backache
Bedsores and Pressure Sores (Skin Ulcers)
Blemishes
Blisters (Friction)
Body Odor
Boils (Furuncles)
Bruises (Contusions)
Burns (Minor)
Children’s Illnesses and Discomforts
Cold and Flu Symptoms
Cold Hands and Feet
Cold Sores and Genital Sores (Herpes Simplex)
Cracked Skin (Severely Dry Hands and Feet)
Cuts and Scrapes
Dandruff (Seborrheic Dermatitis)
Dermatitis, Contact (Rashes)
Dry Skin
Eczema
Elder Care Concerns (70+ Years)
Environmentally Damaged Skin
Fatigue
Foot Therapy
Gout
Hand and Nail Therapy
Headaches (Tension)
Hemorrhoids (External)
Hives (Urticaria)
Infections of the Skin (Minor to Moderate)
Insect Bites and Stings
Insomnia
Lip Therapy
Memory Enhancement
Men’s Concerns
Mental Fatigue
Muscle Stiffness and Soreness
Poison Plant Rashes
Psoriasis
Respiratory Congestion
Scars
Splinters
Stress
Stretch Marks
Sunburn
Warts (Common)
Women’s Intimate Concerns
Part 3 The Ingredient Dictionary
RESOURCES
RECOMMENDED READING
METRIC CONVERSIONS
INDEX
Introduction
It was the early 1900s, and like other self-reliant folk in the Great Smoky
Mountains region of North Carolina, my great-grandmother, Maude Ashe,
practiced the basic yet effective traditional healing arts of her ancestors,
supplemented by a few remedies acquired from the local Cherokee Indians, in
order to care for her family’s ills. She, like so many other housewives of the day,
was expected to be the family doctor, if need be. Making effective, gentle
medicine generally wasn’t a complicated affair. If an infant had colic, you fed
him a little warm catnip, chamomile, or calendula tea and bathed him in a linden
flower or catnip tea bath. If you had a bad cough, you could make a fine
soothing medicine from honey, strong black cherry bark tea, and real apple cider
vinegar. My great-grandmother, along with her many children, explored the
hollows and hills of impoverished Appalachia, learning to identify the local flora
and fauna, and collected beneficial herbs to use as healing medicines. Whether
intentioned or not, she passed this knowledge down to my grandfather, Earl C.
Ashe.
I never planned on becoming an herbalist, a lover of the plant kingdom, a
creator of healing formulas. I think it was — and is — my destiny. I inherited
my “I can grow anything” green thumb and green blood from my grandmother,
Phenie Sims Ashe, and my initiation into herbalism came under the tutelage of
my grandfather.
Several times a year, my family would make the two-hour drive north from
our suburban home in Stone Mountain, Georgia, to my grandparent’s 20-acre