Herbal Medicine: Healing from the bed
Thai basil with anise and liquorice flavor
Chilies are their passion. Apache, Chocolate Cherry, Black Knight, Bell Chili - ChroniquesDuVasteMonde Weller-Boothe, 59, collected over the years. The doctor for internal medicine and natural remedies from Kamp-Lintfort is an enthusiastic gardener. The Nightshade family cultivates them in their herb garden, which they have created on the site of the local Cistercian monastery, framed by ancient walls. The main active ingredient of hot pods, capsaicin, externally applied in ointments, promotes circulation, relieves pain and tension. The fact that Capsicum can not be found in traditional herb gardens does not bother the botanist. Only Christopher Columbus brought the Spanish pepper, the spice of the natives of Central and South America, to Europe at the end of the 15th century. Since the monastery medicine had already exceeded its heyday.
The foundation stone was laid by Benedict of Nursia, founder of the Benedictine order, in the early 6th century. Ordering a garden and healing sick people with herbs, he postulated as the duty of all monks. After Charlemagne ordered the cultivation of medicinal plants in his Krongütern, the knowledge of the monks spread. The monasteries became centers of medicine and herb cultivation - and the nucleus of European garden culture. In addition to the cross garden, image of paradise and retreat for meditation, there were many ornamental and Nutzanpflanzungen inside and outside the monastery walls, the "Klaustrums". And always a herb garden in the immediate vicinity of the infirmary provided supplies of medicine.
peony
The model for these pharmacist gardens was the facility on the world's oldest building plan for a monastery. It was probably drawn in 825 by monks on the island of Reichenau on Lake Constance and has since been stored in the abbey library St. Gallen: twice four equal rectangular beds next to each other, surrounded by another 16 oblong beds as delimitation. 24 beds each with a medicinal plant to keep the herbs pure and to prevent confusion. Sage, veal and boar eye, gourd, melon, wormwood, hornet, fennel, iris, lovage, chervil, lily, opium poppy, clary sage, spider mint, mint, pennyroyal, celery, betony, agrimony, catnip, radish and rose. These were the traditional plants of the monastery gardens. The Reichenauer Abbot Walahfrid Strabo described it in 840 in his famous "Hortulus", the "Book of the Culture of the Gardens" (Liber de cultura hortorum), the most important botanical work of the Middle Ages.
"I have deliberately decided against the remake of a medieval monastery garden," says ChroniquesDuVasteMonde Weller-Boothe. "My garden is purposefully modern and grows here plants for which studies have since proven that they are effective as medicinal herbs." Monastic Medicine of the 21st Century.
Red-leaved black nettles
Although the doctor is critical of drugs and medical technology, she is also a natural scientist. Their by no means only rectangular beds edged with boxwood hedges have arranged them according to the organ systems of the body: cardiovascular and nervous system, digestive organs, skin, urinary and respiratory tract. In addition, beds with special plants against gynecological problems and prostate problems, with spices, fragrances and coloring herbs. And in addition to traditional "hortulus" plants and medicinal herbs, which contributed the folk and experience medicine in later centuries to phytotherapy (phyton = Greek for plant): Rosemary and real chamomile, foxglove, thyme, goldenrod and motherwort. "I would never rely solely on herbal medicine," says ChroniquesDuVasteMonde Weller-Boothe. "But nature has much to offer, and mild ailments or incipient chronic disorders are often good to treat and the side effects of conventional medicine can be mitigated." So she combines with her own patients the best of both systems.
The beds are edged with boxwood
Treating diseases with plants is a prototype of the art of healing. In the medieval monasteries, the medicinal herbs were not only grown, but the wealth of experience of the regional folk medicine was collected for the first time purposefully. What has long been known only orally has been recorded in writing. Hildegard von Bingen, the famous abbess of the monastery on the Rupertsberg am Rhein, was the first to write a systematic pharmacology with plants around 1150.Medicinal herbs were then fresh or dried to tea, Sud and syrup processed or hung up with diapers; it used leaves, flowers, roots, barks or the whole plant.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde Weller-Boothe collects chilies
That a tea from agrimony helps against diarrhea, a tea with vermouth, however, promotes digestion, knew healer back then. Nobody could explain why this is so. Meanwhile, the ingredients of medicinal herbs are well researched. Today it has been scientifically proven that tannins of the agrimony tend to be astringent, while the powerful bitter substances of wormwood stimulate the bile flow and thus the intestinal activity. Active ingredients of plants that used to grow in the monastery gardens are, controlled and standardized, contained in numerous medicines. "For the treatment of diseases, such preparations are useful," says ChroniquesDuVasteMonde Weller-Boothe. "But for self-help with everyday problems, herbs from the pharmacy or your own garden are also suitable."
Chicory
In case of an incipient cold, the doctor recommends sage tea. With hot flashes during menopause it helps to chew sage leaves. The cycle brings a foot bath with rosemary in motion. A tea made from fresh leaves of the Goldenrod is antibiotic and water-dripping on cystitis. A cup of Eberraute tea for one month daily strengthens the immune system; After a month break you should start drinking again. Ribwort plantain, fresh as a patch, provides first aid for wounds and nosebleeds. Heartwort herb tea can regulate high blood pressure and mild heart stuttering. And a teaspoon of syrup from the flowers of the mullein relieves scratching in the throat.
castor-oil plant
"It's easy to make syrup yourself," says ChroniquesDuVasteMonde Weller-Boothe, and then gives the instructions: lay flowers in a glass, add just enough sugar, squeeze and let stand until the sugar turns glassy. Then slowly heat the glass in a water bath so that the sugar liquefies. Remove the flowers and transfer the syrup. Well closed, the home remedy keeps a few months. Above all, herbs from the monastery garden for ChroniquesDuVasteMonde Weller-Boothe are a good way to actively do something for your own health. "Plants give us everything we need, they make many valuable substances, and we can benefit people to strengthen our bodies at any time," says the Naturopath. Her three most important tips in the tradition of monastic medicine: drinking a lot, for example herbal tea; So the metabolism gets the necessary fluid, so that it can function optimally.
Moving a lot. And eat well with as many (kitchen) herbs as possible. "Do something good for your body, so that the soul feels like living in it," wrote Hildegard von Bingen. ChroniquesDuVasteMonde Weller-Boothe takes up this tradition. That she is called from time to herbal witch does not bother her. "Witch comes from the Old High German word Hagzissa," she says. "A creature sitting on the fence between the worlds and practicing jokes, I like that."
