So I got to thinking recently.....I'm sure you have all discovered this is a dangerous pool for me to swim in......and I have this tendency to link... 2 Comments
So recently one of my old posts got ressurrected and tossed around :
http://noblepagan.com/wicca-86/sacred_space_your_altar-2776/
It was a... 7 Comments
Okay so here I am a practioner of Wicca for 17 years. A lot of you already know that though. This does NOT mean that I am the most Wiccany or Witchy... 9 Comments
After sharing The Spiritual Component of Autism (Pantheon) and reading the discussions that followed, I got to thinking about how medication effects... 4 Comments
It is sometimes said that one distinguishing feature of herbal medicines is that the whole plant is used. In fact this is often not the case. It is true that parts of plants may be used whole. Whether eating dandelion leaves (Taraxacum), an apple (Malus spp.), or ginger root (Zingiber), only part of the plant is eaten, though the whole of the part is eaten.
Most herbal medicines use only a part of the plant( leaf, fruit, bark, etc.) but even then it is usually only an extract of the part that forms the medicine. The most common way of taking herbal medicine is as a tea or infusion. This is an extract of soluble ingredients in hot water. Cups of coffee and ordinary household tea are made by the same water extract, which is called an infusion. In each case the coffee grounds or tea leaves are not consumed but are thrown away.
Similar extracts are the basis of most herbal medicines used by professional herbalists, or the starting point for manufacturing a wide range of herbal preparations. Alcoholic extracts, like water extracts, are solutions of various ingredients in a solvent; solutions of alcohol and water in this case. Different strengths of alcoholic solution are used depending on the particular ingredients to be extracted. There are two main types of alcoholic extract. A fluid extract is one part by weight of dried herb to one part of alcohol. A tincture is more dilute, usually one part of herb to three or five parts of alcohol. Homoeopaths use herbal fluid extracts in making their very dilute remedies. They call their fluid extract a mother tincture.
There are as many forms of herbal medicine as there are of pharmaceutical drugs. Starting with either a finely powdered herb or an alcoholic extract, infusions, decoctions, creams, ointments, pills, tablets, lotions, liniments, powders, poultices, plasters, bougies, compresses, pessaries, suppositories, etc. can be made.
Forms of herbal medicines 
Linear Mode
