29/06/2024
Interested in planting, introducing and using versatile and beautiful Echinaceae plants in your garden and diet?
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For those who wanna know more, just like us, here is the "not such a brief history of the enchanting Echinaceae plant". We stumbled upon this text during one of our reaserches we've been doing diligently, while working on our exploration of herbal remedies used by the Indigenous cultures which Zhiva is honored to be invited to closely collaborate with for past 8 years 😊🌿✨
"The 18th century German botanist, Conrad Moench, named the genus Echinacea, which comes from the Greek echinos, meaning hedgehog, referring to the spiny, round seedhead which reminded him of a hedgehog or sea urchin. The species name, augustifolia, means “narrow-leaved”. In some older literature, the names of Rudbeckia and Brauneria were used for this genus instead of Echinacea.
Early settlers soon adopted the plant’s medicinal value from Native Americans as a remedy for colds and influenza, and took it to Europe in the 17th century.
Schar describes a typical scenario of herbs being introduced to the established medical society. A German country doctor discovered this remarkable American plant and its benefits and offered to show doctors its powers at a medical conference. He said that he would allow a snake to bite him and then cure that bite with nothing but echinacea. Nevertheless, the doctors ignored him. Dr. Meyer then presented this same offer to two other doctors named King and Lloyd, electics who belonged to a now-extinct branch of medicine. Uncharacteristically, these two doctors listened to the message and not the messenger and looked further into the herb’s power. Despite initial doubts, the herb was introduced into the 1887 Materia Medica.
American Eclectics, a group of doctors prominent from 1830 to 1930 who used botanicals in their practices, were a major force in bringing echinacea to the forefront of herbal medicine. They promoted it as a blood purifier for venereal disease, as well as an agent for treating migraines, rheumatism, tumors, malaria, and hemorrhoids. After their decline in the 1930s, the herb also fell into disfavour, but regained its stature when interest in herbal medicine revived in the 1970s and 1980s.
In a 1914 issue of Gleaner, Dr. J.S. Leachman reported that the cornflower root was used by early settlers in Oklahoma for their own sicknesses, as well as in their livestock. It is reported that if a cow or horse did not eat well, it soon began to thrive when Echinacea was added to its feed.
Once used by Native Americans, pioneers, and earlier generations of doctors, the herb fell out of favor after the advent of antibiotics in the 1930s, and only recently has been rediscovered — and exploited into hundreds of commercial preparations that claim to boost the immune system and ward off cold and flu symptoms. Within the last fifty years, it has achieved worldwide popularity as an antiviral, antifungal, and antibacterial. The first pharmaceutical company to research the plant was the Sandoz Company. Its findings were published in Germany in 1950. They found the root to possess milk antibiotic activity against Streptococcus and Staphylococcus aureus.
The native distribution of the plant does not extend into Mexico, indicating that its use there is as a result of trade between the tribes of the southern portion of the Prairie Bioregion and Mexico. Several tribes, including the Apache, Kickapoo, and Potawatomis, are known to have retreated into Mexico in the 19th century and may have taken the dried root with them. However, Mexicans often refer to a closely related species (Iostephane heterophylla) that they use which is found in Mexico.
Excavations of a Pawnee earthenlodge village called the “Hill” site, located near Guide Rock, Nebraska (occupied around 1800), uncovered roots identified as being from the purple coneflower. These were identified by the ethnobotanist Melvin Gilmore at the University of Michigan’s Ethnobotanical Laboratory in the early part of the 1900s. In 1917, he reported that the macerated root of the purple coneflower was used to treat snakebite, as well as other venomous bites, stings, and poisonings by all the Indians of the Upper Missouri region. He stated that these, and other, tribes used the purple coneflower “for more ailments than any other plant”.
Native Americans who used the herb to treat toothaches, sore throats, coughs, and infections. Their preferred method was to suck on the root. Researchers now feel that this is the best method as it activates the saliva and disease-fighting resources in the mouth, attacking anything that comes in. Most tribes used the plant to treat snakebites, fevers, and old, stubborn wounds, as well as on burns, swollen lymph nodes, and insect bites.
*The Blackfoot chewed the root to help alleviate toothache, while several tribes used the juice from the plant to treat burns, wounds, ulcers, and other skin conditions.
*The Sioux applied the freshly scraped root as a poultice against hydrophobia caused by the bites of rabid animals.
*The Cheyenne used it for sore mouths, the Choctaws for coughs, the Comanche for sore throats, the Crow for colds, and the Delaware for venereal diseases.
*The Dakotas used the freshly scraped root as a remedy for hydrophobia and snakebite and applied it to wounds that had putrefied.
*The Lakotas ate the root and green fruit when they were thirsty or perspiring and as a painkiller for toothache, tonsillitis, stomachache, and pain in the bowels. Echinacea is still widely harvested for a variety of medicinal uses by the Lakotas on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota.
*The Omahas recognized two kinds of echinacea: the male (nuga), or the larger and more masculine plant and the smaller, “female” (miga) herb. They used some parts of the plant for sore eyes. Their medicine men applied the macerated root as a local anesthetic so that they could remove pieces of meat from a boiling pot without flinching.
*Winnebago medicine men used it to make their mouths insensitive to heat so that they could put a live coal into their mouths to demonstrate their power. These feats helped create confidence in the ability of the medicine men to heal.
*The Kiowa have long used the plant in a cough medicine. They, and the Cheyenne, treated colds and sore throats by chewing a piece of the root and letting the saliva run down the throat. In the 1930s, they were still using the dried seed head as a comb and brush.
*The Cheyenne made a tea from the leaves and roots as a remedy for a sore mouth and gums. The same liquid was rubbed on a sore neck to relieve pain. Toothache caused by a large cavity was relieved by letting a tea from the plant come in contact with it. They also drank the tea as a remedy for rheumatism, arthritis, mumps and measles, and made a salve for external treatments of these ailments. When the roots were mixed with blazing star (Mentzelia laevicaulis) and boiled, the resulting tea was drunk for smallpox.
*Hidatsas warriors were known to chew small pieces of the root as a stimulant when travelling all night."
