Customer Reviews

The Natural Remedy Bible: Everyone's Guide to the Natural Method of Healing

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John Lust is also the author of The Herb Book: The Complete and Authoritative Guide to More Than 500 Herbs, and Michael Tierra is also the author of The Way of Herbs: Fully Updated with the Latest Developments in Herbal Science and Planetary Herbology.

Lust wrote in the Preface to this 1990 book, "From the time 'The Herb Book' was published, I wanted to write its companion book---a reference book about herbal remedies, organized according to ailments. Here in the 'Natural Remedy Bible' you will find information about common illnesses and their natural treatments, as well as various combinations of herbal preparations and methods of applying them. The emphasis is on the use of herbs..."

Here are some additional quotations from the book:

"The words heal, health, and whole all came from a Germanic ancestral word that means 'whole' or 'intact.' (Pg. xiii)
"Today, when drastic intervention is the rule rather than the exception, doctors are still finding that time and nature can be better healers than their most current treatments. For example, a fingertip that has been amputated can grow a fingernail and even a fingerprint if it is kept clean and bandaged, but it heals as a stump if it is surgically sewn up." (Pg xiv)
"What may be a natural and appropriate food for an aboriginal living in a complete state of interdependence with his or her natural surroundings is quite different from the requirements of an American truck driver. Similarly, a pure vegetarian diet that works well for a Hindu or Buddhist monk living in a warm subtropical climate is adjusted by the Tibetan Buddhists to include yak meat, because of the severe, cold climate of the Himalayas." (Pg. 43)
"In fact, it can be demonstrated that the rigid avoidance of animal foods without replacing them with vegetable foods of comparable value has, for many well-intentioned vegetarians, definitely proved to be harmful and a cause of many serious chronic deficiency diseases." (Pg. 61)
"For one thing, antibiotics don't only kill 'bad' bacteria; they kill bacteria quite indiscriminately, including the 'friendly' ones that make up over 90 percent of all the bacteria in our systems." (Pg. 99)
"The face gush has a remarkably stimulating effect on the blood circulation of the facial tissues, which has contributed to its reputation as a beauty treatment." (Pg. 297)

For the everyday person looking for information to assit with a self treatment ailment, this book lacks a lot. There are tons of books out there that really focus on remedies in a length of treating the body as a whole. As an herbalist we treat the body as a whole, not just the symptoms since we know that the symptom is coming from somewhere, there is a root to it. This book just points out an ailment, offers some of this and some of that, then you become confused and don't know what to do. It names many herbs and how they are used but it leaves out the most important part. That part is Primary Properties, Secondary (camirative) and Catalysis. These three should be together in any treatment using natural remedies. It tells you what to use, but doesn't tell you why, so you are left wondering how it is that this is the solution. I would not recommend this book unless you are a knowledable herbalist and at that, I still wouldn't recommend it because chances are you already know better than to leave it hanging out there for the wonderment of it all. Not a good choice, there are no instanst fixes to these type ailments and that goes for Herbal medicine too.