The threat of an imminent influenza pandemic has society frantically searching for preventatives and treatments. The 1918 pandemic, the most lethal in history, is being carefully studied for clues on how to handle the next pandemic. At present, our ability to cope with a fast-moving, highly infectious form of influenza is very limited. This book covers a previously overlooked path: The use of plants to ease the symptoms of influenza. A group of licensed physicians, the Eclectics, successfully used herbs to ease the severe aches and pains, fevers, and coughs as well as to prevent pulmonary complications that were common and often fatal in the 1918 pandemic. This book describes over 30 herbs actually used to treat influenza as well how physicians determined which herb to use and how to dose the plant.
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Editorial Reviews
From the Author
This book is intended both for the average person interested in learning about herbal remedies for influenza and the professional practitioner interested in the details of how physicians were able to successfully treat pandemic influenza.
About the Author
Kathy Abascal is a professional herbalist. She is the co-author of the text Clinical Botanical Medicine and contributed a number of chapters to the recently released Textbook of Natural Medicine. She has also written numerous articles on the use of botanical medicines for the Alternative & Complementary Therapies and many other journals.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Practical clinical herbalism,
By Paul Bergner "Editor, Medical Herbalism journal" (Boulder, CO United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Herbs & Influenza: How Herbs Used in the 1918 Flu Pandemic Can Be Effective Today (Paperback)
With the specter of a major influenza pandemic on the horizon, this book is a timely review and update on therapeutics for this sometimes-lethal disease. Even if today's bird flu does not evolve into a major killer as feared, seasonally epidemic influenza remains a serious disease throughout the world. Abascal's book looks back to the 1918 epidemic, the worst influenza epidemic in recent history, which killed millions of people worldwide. During that epidemic in the U.S., both homeopaths and herbalists claimed a better survival rate than that achieved by physicians of the day. Abascal's review of Eclectic herbal materia medica goes beyond the standard Felter and Ellingwood texts, and includes dozens of references to articles in the Eclectic Medical Journal. A primary source for the book is a survey of Eclectic remedies used during the 1918 Epidemic - the survey was done by the Lloyd brothers pharmaceutical company in 1919. She also includes historical and contemporary naturopathic and herbal sources. The fifteen most commonly-used Eclectic remedies are described in detail. About half of these, including four of the five top herbs, are Class IV low-dose toxic botanicals or other strong herbs generally not available to the non-physician herbalist. She also covers twenty more herbs covered in somewhat less detail. The relevance of this book for the clinical practitioner is four stars out of four. It is sure to broaden your thinking about materia medica and tailoring treatments to the presenting symptoms in the various stages of flu, including fever, muscle pain, headache, and respiratory complications.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent resource,
By
This review is from: Herbs & Influenza: How Herbs Used in the 1918 Flu Pandemic Can Be Effective Today (Paperback)
This book is a great, relatively quick read. After a brief overview of influenza itself, including interesting thoughts about cytokine storms and herbs, Abascal launches into the fascinating history of the Eclectic physicians and their experience during the 1918 influenza pandemic. The fascinating history of the period and the surprising data on efficacy of herbs for this deadly epidemic are well worth reviewing. The details discussions of the herbs are excellently done, brief, too the point, yet fascinating and looking at sides of these herbs largely lost and ignored. This is not another book heralding the same tired herbs for influenza discussed in the current literature. This is a powerful, fascinating review, useful to patients and clinicians alike. I learned a lot from it and believe many others will also.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Surviving "the flu" then and now.,
By
This review is from: Herbs & Influenza: How Herbs Used in the 1918 Flu Pandemic Can Be Effective Today (Paperback)
This book by Kathy Abascal is a lucid survey of the nature of influenza, of current efforts to develop flu vaccines and antiviral drugs that would be efficacious in both seasonal epidemics and pandemics as well as strategies for decreasing transmission of the virus. But Abascal goes far beyond this in presenting a unique and well documented review of the use of herbal treatments in France and in the United States. In fact, by far the greater part of the book deals with these herbal remedies and their use not only in the 1918 pandemic but also in regular practice. Of necessity, with the notable exception of data from a French hospital study in 1918, the evidence for the efficacy of herbal treatments is largely anecdotal. Authors of published reports were primarily adherents of the so-called Eclectic school of physicians who, in addition to having a knowledge of herbal medicines, appear to have been unusually aware of the variety of symptoms and sensitive to their progression in each patient.
While Abascal deals with some 35 herbs, about six were most widely used. Among these were Gelsemium sempervirens (yellow jasmine), Eupatorium perfoliatum (Indian sage), and Aconitum napellus (aconite or wolf's-bane). The limited availability of these herbs (both with respect to quantity and to knowledge of their proper use) would preclude their having wide applicability in a pandemic. But it is easy to imagine and to argue for the advisability of planning modern clinical trials during seasonal epidemics to determine their efficacy. It would then be a further (and not inconsiderable) step to determine what compounds are effective in ameliorating the miseries of "the flu". This is a book worth reading and pondering. The references alone are worth the price.
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