Subject: Forwarded Posting

From: [email-masked] (Conrad Richter)
Date: Fri, 13 Jan 95 23:39:40 EST

-----------------------   Richters Herbletter   ------------------------
   Published by:     Richters, Canada's Herb Specialists
                     Goodwood, Ontario L0C 1A0, Canada
   Editor:           Conrad Richter <[email-masked]>
   
                     *** Trial issue: feedback welcome ***
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Issue ID: 95/01/14 04:30 GMT             

Contents
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1. Scientists Launch Garlic Centre in New York 
2. Medicine from the Garden: Common Annual Flower is Surprisingly Useful 
   for Healing
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1. Scientists Launch Garlic Centre in New York 
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   TORONTO, Jan 11, Medical Tribune News Service -- Scientists have 
started an institution solely devoted to one of the world's greatest --
and most pungent -- natural resources. 
   Yesterday, Cornell Medical Centre in New York was scheduled to open 
its Garlic Information Centre. 
   It will serve as a mecca for garlic aficionados who seek the latest 
information on garlic research, including its potential for fighting 
cancer, heart disease and infections, reducing blood cholesterol and 
lowering blood pressure. 
   Medical education for health care providers on the benefits of garlic 
alos will be offered. 
   Co-director Dr Richard Rivlin says guidelines will eventually be 
drawn up on the use of garlic or garlic supplements. 

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2. Medicine from the Garden: Common Annual Flower is Surprisingly Useful 
   for Healing
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By Conrad Richter

Gardeners are surprised when I tell them they have a medicine 
chest growing in their gardens.  Many annual flowers, 
perennials, shrubs, and trees found growing around the home have 
secret double lives as valuable sources of herbal medicines.  
Take for example the popular garden annual Vinca rosea, the 
periwinkle: it is the source of one of the leading drugs for 
leukemia used today.  Or the purple coneflower: a beautiful 
perennial flower whose root is a proven stimulant of the immune 
system often used in alcoholic tincture form to ward off colds 
and the flu. Even weeds are medicinal; for example, Japanese 
research has shown that the burdock helps to prevent tumours.  
The root is a key ingredient in a herbal cancer remedy called 
"Essiac" that is available to patients under Canada s emergency 
drug program.
        The homely calendula is more modest in its medicinal 
exploits, but is definitely worth getting to know because it is 
one of the most versatile of herbs.  Calendula is a hardy annual 
with showy orange or yellow daisy-like flowers, easily grown 
>from  seeds scattered in the garden in spring.  Often, if some 
flowers are allowed to set seed, it will come back to offer up a 
splash of colour year after year. 
        Calendula flowers contain a variety of compounds which are 
known to stimulate wound healing.  Applied directly to wounds in 
the form of ointments and creams, calendula is anti-inflammatory 
and constricts blood vessels to stop bleeding.  It may also be 
anti-bacterial -- it was used during the American Civil War to 
"draw out infection" -- but this effect has not yet been 
verified by modern science.  
        A healing cream made with calendula flowers, beeswax, 
lanolin and cocoa butter is excellent for rough, dry or chapped 
skin, especially when comfrey (Beinwell) is added to stimulate 
cell regeneration.  Calendula creams and ointments are now 
available in health food stores or you can make your own.  
Lesley Bremness s book, The Complete Book of Herbs (Reader s 
Digest, 1988), has a good recipe.  
        My favourite use of calendula flowers is in salads, where 
a few fresh petals sprinkled over the greenery add visual 
excitement.  How convenient too that calendula excites the liver 
to secrete bile to help digest the meal.  Many herbs when used 
in cooking help digestion and the assimilation of nutrients in 
similar fashion. 
        Elsewhere in the kitchen, calendula petals are used 
lavishly to give a saffron colour and light tangy flavour to 
rice, and can be used in soups, cheese, yogurt, butter, 
omelettes, cakes and breads.  Even as a garnish for meat 
platters and fruit salads, calendula flowers raise the art of 
good eating to a new, healthy level. 
        
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   Richters Herb Catalogue: 100 pages, colour, over 730 herb plants, 
   seeds, and dried herbs.  Available for $2 ($4 outside N America).  
   Order by email at [email-masked].  
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