Herbal Medicine for Preppers: Rhubarb

Hey, y'all, welcome to this week's show. Sorry I didn't have one last week. Had some technical difficulties, had to get some new equipment and get everything sync together. And between the time it took to order it and get it shipped here and time it took a fool round with it, I miss a entire week show. But we'll pick up where we left off, and we're going to talk about a particularly good herb for this time of year. It is rhubarb. Now, you may think of rubarb as a vegetable, you may think of it as a food, and it is to an extent. The stalks of rudbarb are one of my favorite spring foods. They're very rich and vitamin sea. They're slightly sweet. I love a rhubarb and strawberry pie. You may be shocked to find out that has really not traditional the rhubarb and strawberry pie that we think of now, or rhubarb and strawberry jelly. You may do it by yourself, but it's a little sour. Most people do combine it with other fruits, especially strawberries, because they come in at the same time. That was actually invented in New England in America only maybe two hundred years ago. Before then, rhubarb was used medicinally and it was actually one of the most expensive and sought after medicinal herbs on Earth. Let's see. So rhubarb is in the buckwheat family, and just like smartweed and Japanese not weed, it has that sour flavor to it. That's why we usually peer it with fruits. Cultivation began in China and it goes back at least eighteen hundred years ago. There was a book published called The Divine Farmer's Herb Root Classic, and I mean it's really kind of esoteric. I'm not going to get into a lot of it. But even in traditional Chinese medicine now, it's considered to be bitter and cold clear, heat, reduces fire, eliminates toxicity, promotes blood circulation to spells blood stasis, drains accumulation and stagnation drains damp heat drains heat from blood, clears heat obstructing the blood level. What does all that mean, Well, not a lot if you're not into traditional Chinese medicine, and that is a bit beyond the scope of this show. I did study Chinese medicine for about a decade. Basically, it's it's affecting the energy levels in the body. It's tonifying and dispelling toxins and stimulating circulation and all that. And if it's what we would call a hot condition, it's cooling. You know, we don't need to worry about that right now. Mainly it became popular in Western Europe because it's an excellent laxative, and if you know much about English food, tends to be what they call a little stodgy. Hasn't always in that way. Actually, English food, well, in Middle Ages, they had some pretty darn good dishes. Actually, I've done a lot of study on English culinary traditions by well, let's see, by the Victorian time, since when we're starting to get sort of what we would consider English cuisine. They had a lot of bad teeth, dentistry. I mean, England's never been famous for having good dentists and good teeth, not a lot of fiber. The English generally cook their vegetables. Really don't like salads at all, you know, that's more like a French and Italian thing, you know, it's it's just a lot of food that did not exactly lend to good digestion. And then you know, they got into the sugar trade real heavy and started eating far more sugar than any other people on Earth ever had, and the dental health went from bad to worse, and the major issues with you know, gout and such as that, and so laxatives, laxative herbs really were pretty much the most sought after herbs in England for a good two three even four hundred year period. That and digestive bidders to settle an upset stomach. Yeah, anyway, but the Western use of rhubarb actually begins in ancient Greece and Rome. The Ascorites wrote of it, and at that point it was called raw and it did come from Asia. He said it was good taken as a drink for gaseousness, weakness of the stomach, and all types of suffering, convulsion, spleen, liver elements, inflammation of the kidneys, griping, and disorders of the bladder of the chest matters related to hypochondria. Hypochondria at that time was generally an inflammation of the tissue around the lungs that would cause shortness of breath fainting, but it could also be combined with indigestion. Very often again because you know, the food wasn't great, eating a lot of rich foods and a lot of spoiled meats, and yeah it was. Yeah. The English have never been really known very much for their food sanitation either. That's very much in contrast with several ancient cultures, more ancient in England's not that ancient of a culture, but always kind of had a tradition of food poisoning without a doubt. But all that leads to poor digestion and all that. But now, usually when someone in the eighteen hundreds, for instance, or the early well nineteen hundreds really through about the nineteen fifties or sixties would say hysteria, they were talking basically PMS. But traditionally that was not how we understood hysteria. We understood it as inflammation of the lining around the lungs, cutting off the air, shortness of breath. But that could also be associated with certain digestive disorders and nervous disorders that caused one to be anxious and short of breath. All those went under the big, really pathetic label of hysteria. I mean, you know, it wasn't a specific diagnosis per se. Also good for afflictions around the wombs, sy attica, spitting up blood, asthma, ricketts, dysentery, abdominal cavity afflictions, flows of fevers, and bites of poisonous beasts. So you can see rhubarbers really considered quite helpful two thousand years ago. So as I said, it was once one of the most expensive imports to ancient Europe. Trade routes were established to transport rhubarb from China through Turkey to Russia along the Silk Road. I mean that tells you how important it was. The transportation across Asia, of course, made rubar very expensive, and it was worth several times the price of many valuable herbs and spices, such as cinnamon and even opium and saffron. To this day, saffron is the most expensive substance on the face of the earth by weight and volume. It's worth more than illegal drugs. Saffron a spice. So the merchant explorer Marco Polo began searching for a place where it could be grown and harvested, and discovered that it was cultivated in the mountains of the ten Gut Province. The value of rhubarb there can be seen by Oh this was an author. I'm reading my notes right now. I guess this guy was either a Spanish or Portuguese. I'm probably not pronounce this right, RUI rule, are you? Why was his first name Gonzales de Claubillo. Anyway, he reported to his embassy in fourteen o three the best of all merchandising coming from Sammarcan was from China, especially silk satins, musk rubies, diamonds, pearls, and rhubarb. So imagine putting rhubarb together with diamonds and pearls, and you know it's crazy to us now because I mean it's perennial vegetable. It's actually one of the easiest to grow. And all in North America it likes our climate, well not all, I should shouldn't say all. It doesn't like the deserts and you know, hot southwest, but pretty muchnywhere east of the Mississippi and anywhere, oh you know, northwest, mid to midwest to northwest. So take off the southwest and rhubarb is going to go pretty well and may even do okay there with not the deserts, but you know certain areas with a little shade and moist soil and everything. So Gerard, writing fifteen hundreds England, said that he gives all kinds of names for it, and yep yep, talking about Persian and Arabia and everywhere they were still getting it from. They had not perfected cultivating rhubarb in England as of yet. He says. The virtues rhubarb is commended by discordes against windiness, weakness of the stomach, and all griefs thereof convulsions, diseases of the spleen, liver and kidneys, griping an inward, gnawing at the guts, infirmities at the bladder and chests, swelling about the heart, diseases the matrix, that's the vagil issues. By the way, pain in the huckle bone. And I do not know what the huckle bone is. That is one that is still beyond me. Maybe at some point I can find, you know, some old Elizabethan anatomy book and figure out what the heck a huckle bone is. But you know, I haven't had luck with that one. Spitting of bla bood, shortness of breath, yixing, what is yixing, Well, it's actually like gagging, hiccups, bloody flocks, the last produced of raw humors, fits and aguus, and against the bitings of venomous beasts. Moreover, he saith it take away the black and blue spots and tetters or wingworms, if it'd be mixed with vinegar in place anointed therewith. Galen affirms that it'd be good for burstings, cramps and convulsions, and for those that are short winded and that split blood spit blood. But touching the purging faculty. Neither Discorities nor Galen hath written anything because it was not used in those days to purge with. In other words, it wasn't used as a laxative. By the time of Gerard, it was one of the most valuable axes on Earth, probably the most valuable. Galen held opinion that the thin areaus parts do make the binding quality of more force. I have no idea what that means, either, not because it doth resist the cold and earthy substance, but by reason that it carrieth the same and maketh it more deeply to pierce and thereby to work to greater effect. You know, I have absolutely no idea what the heck he's talking about. So i'ms skip that. Let's see, apparently it was the Arabs that introduced it as a laxative and for purging phlim so expectorant, but also removing mucous from the intestines and such. He says, the purgation which is made with rhubarb is profitable and fit for all such as be troubled with collar and for those that are sick of sharp intertioni fevers or have the yellow jaundice or bad livers. Yes, rubarb also has a tonic effect on the liver. He said. It is good medicine against the plor see the inflammation the lungs. So that's the hysteria we were talking about, the squintcy. I'm not sure where the squintcy is madness, frenzy, inflammation of the kidneys, bladder and inward parts, and especially against Saint Anthony's fire as well outwardly as inwardly taken, so, this is starting to look like sort of a panacea, right, Ruebarb is undoubtedly especially good medicine for the liver and infirmities of the golf or besides that, it purges forth choleric and naughty humors. It removes stoppings out of the conduits, and you think it's hard to read Shakespeare. Okay, it also mightily strengthens the ends trails themselves, insomuch as rhubarb is justly termed of a diverse life of the liver. For Galen, in his eleventh Book of the Method or Manner of Curing a firmath that such medicines are most fit and profitable to the liver as have joined with a purging and opening quality and a stringent or binding power. The quantity that is to be given is from one dram to two of that we're just given steeped made into a tea, and in hot diseases, with an infusion of deal with water of suckery in dive or some other such like nature. So we're talking chickery or in dive, which is in the Chickley family, pressing a juice of that and rubarb was steeped in it. That's going to give you more a stringency, am be more effective on the liver as well. Let's see, I'm gonna skip a lot of what he said because, like I said, a lot of what he said, I don't even understand what he's saying. So he said. He did say that rhubarb is a harmless medicine and good at all times for all ages, and likewise for children and women with child Sometimes in pregacy you want to avoid strong laxatives. They can cause contractions, so he's saying this one doesn't cause cramping. Dried, he said, was good for stopping internal bleedings and fluxes or lasks of all kinds. Let's see. At that point he had a correspondence with a Samson. Johnson at the College of Oxford assured him that positions in Vienna in Austria, you scarce any other at this day than the rhubarb of the ancients, which grows in Hungary not far from there. So they goten cultivated at that point enough to grow it in Hungary. Interesting, so, about one hundred years later Colepepper, in much more plain language so it's still a little fancy for our time, describes rhubarb and it being perennial and how it pops up one of the first stable plants in the spring. Let's get into his medicinal uses. Apparently he was really fond of rubarb, because on quite a bit more on this herb than any other on how to grow it, how to use his food and medicine. He like to combine it with docs as an early spring tonic, which makes a ton of sense, government and virtues. There we go. This is okay. This is where you get weird with Colpepper. He was really into astrology, and he says, Mars claims predominancy over all these wholesome herbs. You cry out upon him for an unfortunate when God created him for your good. Only he is angry with fools? What dishonor is this not to Mars but to God himself? A dram of the dried root of rhubarb and a scruple of ginger man into powder and taken fasting in a draft or mess of warm broth, purges collar and frim flim downwards very gently and safely, without danger. So again helps remove mucus and helps his alaxative. Essentially, he said, the seed thereof, contrary doth bind the belly and helped to stay any sort of lascar bloody flux. The seed is more stringent and helps to dry up diarrhea or internal bleeding. The distilled water thereof is very profitably used to heal scabs and also foul ulcerous sores, and to allay the inflammation of them, the juice of the leaves and roots or to coction them, and vinegar is used as the most effectual remedy to heal scabs and running sores. Yeah, there's another type of rubarble wild rhubarb and non cultivated, which he called the bastard rhubarb. Said it was more powerful than the cultivated or monks rhubarb. He said, A decoction thereof without vinegar. I don't know why he would say that dropped into the ears takes away the pain, gargling in the mouth, takes away the toothache, and being drank kills the jaundice. The seed thereof eases annoying griping pains and the stomach, and takes away the loathing there unto of meat. In other words, it helps you stimulate the appetite. The root thereof helps the ruggedness of the nails, and being boiled in wine helps the swelling of the throat, commonly called the King's evil. That's scrapula, it's infected glands in the throat. Also the swellings and kernels of the ears. It helps them that are troubled with the stone or gravel, you know, provokes urine helps demis a site. Roots of bastard rhubarb are used in opening and purging and in diet drinks and other things. Open the liver and the cleans and cool the blood so we get a sip of water. Then we get up to modern use. I mean, I could do a book just on rhubarb. I mean, it was just amazing all the the when I started writing researching rhubarb, I'm like, okay, I mean I'm going to do put five percent of this over here in my stack to use in my work. Right, It's just huge the amount of information on it. MS Greeve, writing in the nineteen thirties said, rhubarb this point was being grown in England. They cultivated, and of course it spread to the New World very very quickly. Let's see medicinal actions and uses a stringent tonic stematic apparent in large doses. Rhubarb powder acts as simple and safe purgative, being regarded as one of the most valuable remedies we possess, affecting a brisk, healthy purge without clogging the bowels and producing constipation. Too often consequent upon the use of more active purgatives. You know how you're not supposed to over use laxatives. It can weaken your digestive system. Well, this one, rubarb's one you can use. It's much more mild, especially when eaten as a food, but away. It is especially useful in cases of diarrhea caused by an irritating body in the intestines. The cause of the irritation is removed and the after a stringent action checks the diarrhea. And she gives some medical studies on that, and it was did nineteen thirty so part of the official British Pharmacopeia medical journals, talking about how it's really good for dysentery and diarrhea and all kinds of stuff. She said, the English rhubarb, their cultivated version, is similar in action to Turkey or Chinese rhubarb than milder. Okay uh, let's see. She gives a lot more medical studies, but it's not actually uses the English rhubarb as milder as a purgative. It is more a stringent and has been considered a better stematic, so better for stomach tonic. Essentially, it is a special especially useful and infantile stomach troubles and looseness of the bowels. In larger doses, it acts as a LAXI excuse me, a laxative. Uh. The cox of the seeds is supposed not only to ease the pains of the stomach, but strengthen it by increasing appetite. Decox of the root employed as a wash for scruffless skulls, scruffless sores. There we go, a portion of the root and fused in water, UH, strained with a few grains of salt of tartar tartaric acid. Be very I don't know it may what is this? It made a very beautiful red tincture that could be used as a dye. So we don't knew word about that, all right, So let's get up to very modern use plants for a future. Modern use of rhubarb. Rhubarb has a long improven history of herbal uses, its main effect being a positive and balancing effect upon the whole digestive system. It is one of the most widely used herbs in Chinese medicine. The root is anti cholesterolimic, antiseptic, anti spasmodic, anti tumor apparient, astringent, colagogue, demulcon, diuretic, laxative, purgative, stematic, antonic. The root contains anthroquies, which have a purgative effect, and also tannins em bitters, which have an opposite a stringent effect. When taken in small doses, it acts as a stringent tonic to the digestive system, while larger doses act as a mild laxative. The root is taken internally in the treatment of chronic constipation and diarrhea, liver and gall black bladder complaints, hemorrhoids, menstrual problems. Its skin eruption is due to accumulation of toxins. This remedy is not prescribed for pregnant or lactating women, and that's well because a little too much is going to do one thing and a little too little is going to do the other, and you really can't just predict it. So we don't recommend rubarb now for pregnant women, even though earlier times it was recommended as a safe laxative. That said, we're talking medicinal doses. We're not talking about eating a good strawberry and rhubarb pie or some jelly. I do love rubarb jelly. I'm telling you, on a hot biscuit with some butter. That's really good stuff combined with strawberry or something like that. Anyway, whereas I externally the root is used in the treatment. Oh, also not good for patients with intestinal obstruction. That's you know, a pretty serious deal. If you have an actual intestine obstruction, you might want to go to a doctor for that. You probably do if you can. Now if you're stuck out in the woods grid known situation, a mild mild laxative, but not before you've used what's called demulcent softening herbs really for the avow in obstruction. If I had to, my first go to would be mallow, mallow, marshmallow or really anything in the mallow family. Okrah, even get that mucilaginous quality softening and soothing and probably an aspasmodic herb to kind of stop the contracttions of the bow a little bit and just kind of let things kind of slide through a little and then I might look at something like a very very mild laxative. But yeah, that can be very very serious. I mean, you know, you can die from a vow obstruction, and it's very very very painful, but yeah, mallow would be my go to anyway there was. Externally, the root is used in treatment of burns. The roots are harvested in October from plants are at least six years old, and they are dried for later use. A homeopathic remedy is prepared from the dried root. Is especially useful in the treatment of diarrhea and teething children. So, as I said, it's unknown when rhubarb stems can be used as a common food in the Western world. The old English books all mentioned that the British climate may cultivating rhubarb extremely difficult, and because the roots tended to rot and the lea are toxic, they have high quality quantities of oxalic acid. So more than likely it was a very long time before people figured out what planet of that part of that plant was edible and how to eat it. So remember, don't eat the leaves. Oxalid Acid can lock up certain minerals in the body, especially calcium, leading to nutritional deficiency, and it can also crystallize in your urine. It can be really bad for people with arthritis, rheumatism, galt, kidney stones, hyper acidity. Yeah, yeah, do not eat the leaves and you know, if you have you might even want to be careful with the stems if you have rheumatism, arthritis, galp, kidney stones, or hyper acidity. But I think they're fairly safe. I certainly would not hesitate to eat my rue barb and strawberry pie. It is delicious, and it's a time of year, and when it comes to our prepper type of mindset, it's a great perennial. It's a plant once comes back again and again and again. Let's see, we got one note here from the History Channel. It said, although this plain, unassuming plant has been a staple of British cooking for some time, it wasn't until eighteen thirty seven that the plant truly took the English speaking world by storm. In fact, the introdution introduction of this quirky coronation commemorative marked the beginning of what would be a long and passionate love affair between Victorians and rhubarb. Yeah, it sounds like the History Channel, let's see, you see, the introduction of the Victorian variety nineteenth century was the one they'd been waiting for. Easy to grow, reliably robust, consistently sweet and tender Victoria, rhubarb was a runaway smash hit from the start, and the Victorian obsession with rhubarb had truly begun. They put rhubarb in everything, jams, jellies, pies, custards, fools and puddings. Yeah, fools, sort of creamy dessert anyway. And while rhubarb is generally treated as a fruit, it also made many popular appearances and references references of the day as a savory ingredient, particularly paired with meats and cheeses and stuffings and sauces. And according to the New England Historical Society, rubarb originally had minicial use as a purgative relaxative, not until the American Revolution. Ended was used in pies. Then in the early nineteenth century and an unnamed genius renamed it pie plant, and rhubarb took off. The author speculates that the cause of rhubarb's popularity may have been that it was one of the first fresh spring vegetables available after long hard winters of stored root vegetables and salted meats. So now we think of rhubarb as a sort of a plant. Most of us don't even grow in the garden to serve an old fashioned plant, and that's a shame because it used to be considered as valuable as silks and satins and diamonds. I think it's delicious. It's definitely one that has a place in my garden. All Right, y'all have a great week, and I'll talk to you next time. The information this podcast is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease or condition. Nothing I say or write has been evaluated or approved by the FDA. I'm not a doctor. The US government does not recognize the practice of verbal medicine, and there is no governing body regulating herblens. Therefore, I'm really just a guy who says herbs. I'm not offering any advice. I won't even claim that anything I write or say is accurate or true. I can tell you what earths have been traditionally used for. I can tell you my own experience, and if I believe in herb has helped me, I cannot, nor would. I tell you to do the same. If you use an herb anyone recommends you are treating yourself, you take full responsibility for your health. Humans are individuals, and no two are identical. What works for me may not work for you. You may have an allergy of sensitivity and underlying condition that no one else even shares and you don't even know about. Be careful with your health. 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