Rosemary

Here is an interesting plant that I have used to help my mother. Mom had a stroke on the left side of her brain. Her right leg and her right arm were affected and her right hand would form a ball and curl into her chest. I didn't really understand the body effects but I wanted to help Mom.

I remembered reading in Mrs. Grieve's book A MODERN HERBAL about Dandelion or Rosemary helping one of the royals in Europe that also had a stroke, a couple hundred years ago. So it was back to the books for me. I found it! It seems that fresh Rosemary was cut and put into "Spirits of wine, this was allowed to stand for four days and then distilled." According to Mrs. Grieve this formula was "dated 1235, said to be in the handwriting of Elizabeth, Queen of Hungary." It was to be taken in small amounts like a tonic. (Tonics are taken once a day in a capsule or a tablespoonful. "Tonics are herbs that stimulate nutrition and permanently increase systemal tone, energy, vigor, and strength," according to Dr. John Christopher.)

After finding this again, I decided to try it. I make dandelion wine in accordance with an old family recipe given to me by my Dad's cousin. Having a few bottles of this homemade wine, I cut tops off my Rosemary and dropped them into the wine to allow the wine to pull all of the active ingredients into it. Then we started to administer this to my Mom. Within a few days we noticed that her arm had relaxed into her lab and her hand wasn't tightly curled. She seemed more at ease and not so agitated. She was unable to talk to us at that time so I didn't know how it was making her feel.

My boss mentioned that she had a client only in her 20s and had recently had a stroke too. She asked me to make this formula for her client. I did and made a disclaimer for her client to sign. Not sure if it would have held up in court but I needed to protect myself in case of a problem.

I didn't hear anything about this client so I asked my boss. She didn't know how it had worked either but gave me her phone number. The client lived with her parents so I got to talk to her Mother. I was told that the client was sleeping, so I mentioned that I had created the herbal tonic and wanted to know how it was working. The Mother was raving about it. She said that before the tonic, this girl only slept about two hours at a time as she was in so much discomfort. When the tonic started to work and the muscles relaxes, she was able to sleep for long periods of time. The Dandelion and Rosemary had released the torqued muscles.

Because Rosemary is so good at stimulating circulation it can be used for headaches, nervous diseases. I even read where it will help with kidney problems.

Dr. Duke in his book THE GREEN PHARMACY talks about it being used for Alzheimer's due to its antioxidant properties. He even mentions that it is sometimes called the "Herb of remembrance."

Duke mentions that Rosemary has properties that can be used to preserve foods without refrigeration. This is an interesting idea. We usually associate Salt with this ability. In the old west they would dry or salt meats to keep them from becoming un-useable, now we know that Rosemary has this capability also.

Rosemary has such a wonderful clean smell to it, almost a Pine smell, if you will. I decided to look in Dr. Duke's wonderful Database and see what is creating this wonderful smell. I found that 23 different constituents in this one herb, accounts for this smell. He labels them with the word, "perfumery".

Last week I decided to put Rosemary simmered in Olive oil on my hair, mainly to get the tangles out and found that it added a wonderful smell. For reasons unknown to me or anyone, I have not had my hair cut for three years so it tends to get tangled up and the tangles were easy to undo with this combination. I guess it might also help my brain and stimulate the circulation in the scalp with this combination, not a bad side effect.

While I was in Duke's Data base, I wanted to see what this plant is capable of doing. I found so many things that were anti-cancerous, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory. I bumped into Anti viral many times and antisalmonella was there along with antilymphomic and antirhinoviral. Even anti-Syndrome-X was in there, this is a precursor of diabetes.

I can truly understand why this is such a wonderful herb and in my area, I can have it in a pot in my house all winter long. So what am I going to do with this herb? After reading all the things that this wonderful lady can do, I think that every time I water her or clean around her, I will ask her permission for me to take one of her pungent leaves. Chewing on this will give my body a good feeling because not only am I able to ingest all of the constituents in this plant but I have been given a gift from this plant.