“In the 1920s medical licensing boards in all the Appalachian states began enforcing new standards for medical education based on the new biomedical method. Thereafter, local medical associations were vigorous in their efforts to identify quacks, including folk healers, and prosecute them in court for practicing medicine without a license…It must be noted that the increasingly powerful medical establishment was, as today, as much interested in increasing its hegemony over the health care sector and protecting its proprietary interests as it was in protecting the public from the menace of alternative medicine.”
-- Anthony Cavender, Folk Medicine in Southern Appalachia
With “Obamacare” looming large on the horizon and presented as the sole alternative to rising health-care costs, it occurs to me that it’s high time the “menace” of alternative medicine reared its ugly head anew.
I’m preparing a typically long-winded, digression-ridden rundown of my reasons for adding this section to the blog, but for the time being, you’ll have to settle for a typically long-winded, digression-ridden disclaimer.
I’m not a doctor, and I don’t even portray one on late-night television commercials. (“And the aneurysm, orchitis, vertigo, scrofula, kidney failure and five-days of priapism I got from a single dose of BoneZyte? Well, that was kinda fun, too…”) The closest I’ve ever come to attending medical school was when I volunteered to take experimental pills for fifty bucks a day (fifty bucks could buy a lot of booze back then…;-).
I learned what I know over a fifteen-year period, studying martial arts, collecting folklore, exchanging pointers with other “alternative” practitioners, “field testing” the information I’d collected (using myself as a guinea pig…) and, since 2005, studying the common threads that link European herbalism, Hillbilly and American Indian folk medicine, reflexology, and traditional Chinese medicine – and the seemingly unbridgeable gaps that separate them.
As the aforementioned traditions frequently contradict each other on the theoretical level, and as Western allopathic medicine either flatly denies their effectiveness, or grudgingly invokes the ever-vague “placebo effect” when a certain technique or formula produces the desired results, I’ve opted to suspend theory and adopt the old-fashioned empirical method: I may not know why, it works, but I know that it works. (This, incidentally, reminds me of a cutesily smartass Discordian aphorism: “Science and magic are both just ways of saying, ‘Look! It did it again!”)
The law forbids me to claim that any given method in this section is an effective remedy for any given ailment. I probably shouldn’t even refer to myself as a “healer,” although others do.
What I can do is relate a few personal anecdotes (and formulas), present my own “lab notes” and share the information I’ve gathered on various non-standard healing methods. I can also allow the people I’ve asked to sample certain remedies to provide firsthand testimony, as the First Amendment still permits some forms of free speech.
As, however, I don’t charge fees for poking and prodding various “pressure points” (although I was once fined for attempting to do so surreptitiously on subway cars and elevators…;-) or administering foul-tasting herbal soups to those who request them (hopefully, my 4x Great-Grandfather, Isaac Wright, would be proud of me), I suppose the following paragraph is the only relevant portion of this disclaimer.
All material in this section of the blog is presented for information/entertainment purposes only. The reader assumes sole responsibility for acting upon it.
Having gotten that out of the way, I’ll get to the “meat” of today’s piece.
Yellow Dock
Like several people I know, my wife has psoriasis. Over the years, she’s tried numerous treatments (both prescription and over-the-counter), none of which has provided permanent relief. In some cases, the “cure” proved worse than the ailment itself, thereby underscoring the truth of yet another rustic saying. One drug, for example, reduced the cracking, scaling, and itching – but significantly weakened her immune system in the process. (And by what inexplicable alchemy, by the way, does today’s “miracle cure” invariably become tomorrow’s “silent killer”?) Other remedies (including a ridiculously overpriced, “big name” Swiss product) provided only temporary relief.
Needless to say, this simply wouldn’t do. As the “American Dark Ages” are nearly upon us, economically speaking, tossing good money after bad (if, indeed there is any such thing as “good” money these days…) on ineffective snake oil was self-evidently foolish. I therefore looked for cheaper, more effective ways to treat her.
Of the “alternative” healing methods I’ve explored, the Chinese has proven most effective. I’ve sworn by dit da jow for years, and the “Iron Palm” liniment a friend sent me (I’d like to provide a link, but I’d best consult him first. He’s a very busy man, and doesn’t suffer fools gladly) was eye-poppingly effective. Two days after my wedding, another friend whose understanding of traditional Chinese medicine surpasses my own tenfold plied me with an herbal preparation that completely healed a broken bone within three weeks -- and I’m a smoker!
Having seen so many positive results from Chinese medicine, I looked to it first when it came to treating Maggie. After several days of reading, I opted to try two simple remedies and see if anything noteworthy came of either. One consisted of chopped, crushed ginger root, macerated in alcohol for two days, the other of whole cloves steeped in the same medium.
I know very well that ginger and cloves, while native to the Orient, have figured prominently in the Western herbal tradition since the late fifteenth-century. I resorted to clove oil to numb an abscessed, impacted wisdom tooth (even when, as a self-initiated acolyte of the Order of St. Rosenbaum the Rational, I refused to accept its effectiveness intellectually), and have used ginger to ease other complaints, as well. In this case, though, neither worked as well as we’d have liked.
The ginger tincture reduced the scaling and the extent of the patches – but only so far. Furthermore, Materia Medica advises that ginger can actually exacerbate certain skin conditions, so I might discontinue the treatment entirely and see what happens. The clove extract eliminated the itch on contact, but did little else. We have yet to try the direct application of rice vinegar, the extracted oil of dry-fried egg yolks, or ointment made of garlic and lard -- for what I suspect are obvious reasons. Materia Medica lists a member of the dioscorea family (D. bulbifera) as a treatment for psoriasis, but that form of dioscorea is very toxic and can cause liver damage. Even when a tincture is applied topically, some of it is certain to enter the bloodstream, so I consider it too risky to use. For that reason, I thought something a little gentler and a little closer to home was in order.
The plant in question is yellow dock:
Family: Polygonaceae Genus: Rumex Species: crispus
Yellow dock is also known as curly dock, curled dock, bitter dock, sour dock, narrow dock, and garden patience. It’s a very common plant in Georgia, where it’s considered a weed. (Two other plants often used to treat psoriasis, mountain grape and dandelion, also grow on our property. I’ll be trying them soon, and will post the results in a future piece.)
In his 1832 book, Wright’s Family Medicine, my ancestor says:
“Dock narrow – grows in fields and flowers about the middle of summer. The roots bruised have been applied with efficacy in the cure of obstinate ulcers, and hard, cancerous tumors. A decoction of them will cure the itch. The seeds will check a dysentery. The root, it is said, is mildly purgative.”
It’s also an ingredient in his “vegetable unguent”:
“Take narrow dock, poke (Phytolacca americana) and hellebore (NB: I’d imagine he means American hellebore – Veratrum viride or V. album, both of which are poisonous, but which Wright, interestingly enough, recommends for treating manic-depression ) of the roots of each half a pound, beat them fine, put them into five gallons of water, boil it down to a pint, pour it off, then add two pounds of hogs lard, stew it down to a pint. Let the oil then stand until it settles; add of common turpentine, and sweet gumwax, each a piece as large as a hen egg. Apply sufficient heat to melt in the last two ingredients, and the unguent is ready for use.
This unguent is an excellent medicine in most cutaneous diseases, and in the hands of the author, has never failed to cure the itch.”
The leaves are astringent, rich in iron (although soil conditions will modify this characteristic), and used as poultice for sores and hives. The juice is a very effective remedy for “close encounters of the worst kind” with sting-weed (a.k.a. “nettles”). The leaves are edible after cooking in one or two changes of water, but I find them unpleasantly sour; rather like bad-tasting French sorrel. The seeds were ground and eaten by many Indian tribes, while the roots stimulate bile, clear toxins, and are used internally to treat psoriasis and constipation. They also provide a yellow dye which can be used to color cloth or buckskin. The mildly laxative root also benefits the liver and gallbladder (which actually makes sense in both the Chinese and Western herbal models).
Its widespread use in the treatment of skin conditions, though, is what first caught my eye. In Appalachia, the locals soak it in vinegar and use it as a wash for fungal infections. Farther north, the Ojibwa (Chippewa) called it ginjojewûkûn. They dried and powdered the root, then moistened it and applied it as poultice for itching, ulcers and skin eruptions.
Yellow dock was recognized in 1928 U.S. Pharmacopoeia and National Formulary as astringent, mildly tonic and alterative. Modern herbalists consider it an astringent, alterative, cholagogue, hepatic, laxative, and tonic. The active ingredients consist of Anthraquinone glycosides and tannins.
The topical application of most herbs (and I’m guessing this one will be no different in that respect) only results in temporary relief of psoriasis, eczema and similar ailments. For this reason, we’ve decided to use it internally, as a decoction or “tea.” In this case, the dosage consists of 1 or 2 teaspoons of dried yellow dock root, simmered in one cup of water for fifteen minutes, administered three times a day – probably for the rest of one’s life.
Now you don’t want to sashay out into the nearest meadow (or your backyard), yank the stuff out of the ground and use it as-is. Plants, like animals, have lifecycles. The quality of any given herb depends not only upon the kind of soil in which it’s grown, but the time of year and state of maturity in which it’s harvested. (Young pokeweed shoots, for example, are edible, but the plant becomes toxic as it matures.) The best time to harvest yellow dock is from late September until the winter solstice. In loose soils, the roots can become very large and tenacious (you should have seen Maggie and me sweating, puffing and cussing whilst trying to remove one that had “colonized” one of our raised beds this summer…), so the Gentle Reader would do well to take a shovel, spade, mattock or E-tool when collecting it. Dig in a circle 3” or so from the root, then pull the entire “core sample,” if you will, from the ground. Brush the soil away from the roots (if you live in Georgia, this can take some doing, as we have heavy clay soil), then wash it thoroughly, separate the root from the stem, split it in half lengthwise, and hang it or dry it on racks made from 1” x 1”s and window screen.
So much for yellow dock.
Nasty Ingredients: Animal Innards
Last year, a friend of ours sent Maggie and me a copy of Materia Medica (essentially the last word in traditional Chinese medicine) as a wedding present. At over a thousand pages, it’s quite literally an encyclopedia of the various substances employed in the Chinese pharmacopoeia, and covers everything from common herbs to such exotic ingredients as abalone shells, dried gecko, seahorses and dogs’ peckers. The same year, our own Aaron (forgetting that he was at a wedding and not a catch-as-catch-can wrestling match) managed to crack one of my ribs. (Now you know why body punching is so popular in Asia – it doesn’t take much force to break a rib, especially when the intended target has conveniently raised his arms…).
Broken ribs are nasty business, because it literally hurts to breathe when so injured. Moreover, unlike broken arms or legs, elevating or immobilizing the injury is impossible. The pain makes even sleeping difficult, and if you’re a dumbshit ridgerunner like me, you’re sure to exacerbate the condition by hiking up a fucking mountain with a 30-pound pack the day after you sustain the injury. Even worse, if your wife is a heartless psychopath like mine, she’ll make you drag a huge suitcase the entire mile-and-a-half from your hotel to MacYoung’s house despite your condition.
As I hadn’t counted on being injured, I’d left my “toy box” (the collection of “weird shit,” as my wife calls it, that I use to treat various ailments) in Georgia. There was an herb shop just off the main drag in Castle Rock, but I couldn’t remember seeing boneset or any of the other herbs I’d have used on their shelves. Besides, it was Sunday morning, so the place would have been closed.
Fortunately, a friend of ours had brought his “toy box” with him. Part of his stock consisted of a true “miracle drug,” an internal version of dit da jow called hsiung tan tieh tah wan. (The name is Mandarin, but the Kanji “tieh” and “ta” correspond to “dit” and “da” in Cantonese). It’s a mixture of angelica, Chinese rhubarb, amomi fruit, turmeric, Inula, Carthamus, pseudoginseng and bear’s gall. It tastes like warmed-over shit, but it works like a charm. Our friend gave me three doses, but since one of the TSA Stoßtruppen (“If you want to professionalize, you must federalize…) or baggage handlers at either Hartsfield or DIA stole one of them from my suitcase (the knuckle-dragging mouth-breather probably thought it was the Chinese equivalent of crack), I was only able to take two. Our friend recommended taking them with red wine, but as said libation was ridiculously expensive at DIA, I took the first dose with water and the second with beer. Even under these less-than-ideal conditions, the medicine was remarkably effective.
Now I’m sure to have every tree-hugger and squirrel-hugger on the planet excoriating me for having partaken of bear’s gall – but to hell with ‘em. The stuff works, and that’s all that matters to me. On the average, it takes a broken bone six to eight weeks to heal. When using these pills and a twice-daily application of jow, though, it only takes three. According to Materia Medica, bear’s gall acts on several of the major meridians (liver, gallbladder, heart, spleen and stomach), and is used to relieve spasms and convulsions. That makes perfect sense, as the muscle spasms one experiences whilst nursing a broken bone are often un-conducive to the healing process.
What I found most fascinating about the substance, though, was that the Chinese aren’t the only people who use it medicinally.
According to the Forty-Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology (1926-7), p. 333, the Ojibwa used a 50/50 mixture of dried bear gall and hazel or cedar charcoal to treat “dizzy headache,” rheumatism and neuralgia. The gall and charcoal were mixed then pricked into the skin with wooden needles. Hmmm… Two vastly different cultures; two broadly similar uses for a substance Western medicine won’t even acknowledge…
Soup du Jour
Before I finish this piece and knock off for the evening, I’d like to provide a pair of soup recipes. These two are unusual, in that they’re both tasty and medicinal. As many of you know, some Chinese herbal soups and brews could put a fly off a cowflop. (You should see the look on Maggie’s face when she takes her angelica elixir…). These two, though, aren’t just healthy; they’re delicious.
The first is a variation of the Chinese wolfberry stew recipe I posted a few weeks ago. There are no shiitake mushrooms in the original, and it’s really more a soup than a stew. It’s made with oxtails rather than stewing beef, and is a little light on the wolfberries. I gather that it was slightly modified in the interest of pleasing the palate rather than fortifying the chi, and have therefore “corrected” it to the best of my ability.
1 lb oxtail, sliced, trimmed and blanched
Water to cover
2 scallions (preferably with roots), cut into 3” pieces
2” piece ginger root, crushed and chopped
½ cup “yellow” rice wine
2t sea salt
½ oz. Chinese wolfberries (Lycium barbarum or L. chinense)
White pepper to taste
10 reconstituted shiitake mushrooms (optional)
A few drops of sesame oil (optional)
Place oxtails, salt, ginger, scallion, salt, and wine in a pot (preferably a clay pot or double-boiler) and add water to cover. Heat to boiling, reduce heat and simmer for one hour, covered. Quickly lift lid and add wolfberries and mushrooms (if desired). Simmer for an additional 30 minutes to an hour, until oxtails are tender. Serve in individual bowls, seasoned with white pepper and sesame oil. I’ve discussed the reputed health benefits of the various ingredients in an earlier post, so for now, I’ll simply add that oxtails are considered a blood tonic, while ginger (as per Materia Medica) is considered acrid and slightly warm, and said to act upon the lung, spleen and stomach meridians.
(Notes: 1.) Hardcore herbalists may prefer to use freshly ground black pepper, as the berries haven’t been stripped of their outer layer, and are thusly “whole” herbs; 2.) I don’t recommend checking on the soup while it cooks. Lifting the lid allows many of the volatile constituents of the herbs to escape, thereby diminishing its health benefits.)
The next recipe appears to be completely legit (i.e., traditional), so I’ll post it almost as I found it. It appears in a fifteen-year-old book called The Food of China, which I picked up in a used bookstore a few years ago. I’ve tried to ferret out other titles in the series (which highlighted the cuisines of Bali, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, respectively), but as I can’t find them anywhere, I assume they’re out of print.
1.5 lb. duckling
1.5 quarts homemade chicken stock
1T sliced lesser galangal (Alpinia officinarum)
¾ oz. Korean ginseng (Panax ginseng)
¾ oz. Cordyceps sinensis (a.k.a. “caterpillar fungus”)
¾ oz. Chinese wolfberries (Lycium barbarum or L. sinense)
2t sea salt
1t white pepper
When preparing duck or goose, I usually dip the bird in rapidly boiling water and then dry it for an hour or so. The recipe recommends soaking it in tepid water for half an hour, so I do both. Duck is very greasy and, depending on the quality of the bird’s diet, sometimes inclined towards muskiness. If using wild duck (which a die-hard practitioner of Chinese medicine would undoubtedly applaud), the blanching/soaking is an absolute necessity.
The original recipe calls for steaming the duck with the other ingredients, but I prefer the time-honored double boiler or clay pot, kept covered for the entire two hours it takes to prepare this dish.
Duck, according to Henry Lu, is a yin tonic (chicken, on the other hand, is an energy tonic). It’s sweet, salty, neutral, and acts upon the lung and kidney meridians. Chicken, by way of comparison, is sweet, warm, and affects the spleen and stomach meridians.
There’s no sense in reviewing wolfberries, so I’ll put Cordyceps, lesser galangal and ginseng in the spotlight.
Of the three ingredients, Cordyceps is undoubtedly the most revolting to Western sensibilities. Essentially “arthropod jock itch from hell,” it’s a parasitic fungus that attacks certain caterpillars – eventually killing them – while leaving its victim’s corpses more-or-less intact. Yes, this means you’ll be treated to the sight of bugs floating in your soup, when and if you use it. (If, however, you’ve ever eaten lunch in a Fulton County Public School System cafeteria, you’ve probably long since become inured to seeing such things…) Cordyceps, according to Materia Medica, enters the lung and kidney meridians, “…tonifies kidney yang, augments the essence, tonifies the lungs, settles coughs and wheezing, stops sweating.” It’s also used as a remedy for impotence, so I suppose you can flush that Viagra down the crapper – just eat mo’ bugs! When combined with duck, chicken, pork or fish, it’s a remedy for lassitude, dizziness, and weakened protective chi.
Alas and alack, I’ll never get my wife (who occasionally suffers from all three) to touch the stuff. She has a horror of even jellyfish and nameko mushrooms while steak and kidney pie gives her and my long-suffering mother the dry heaves. (“Oh, no! He’s not cooking that again, is he? The whole house is going to smell like a pissoir…”)
I suppose it’s just as well, as Cordyceps is becoming difficult to find in the Lower 48, and correspondingly pricey. Once upon a time, one could purchase pre-measured packets of cordyceps, wolfberries, dioscorea and other herbs at Asian markets, but those days are long gone. And since I now know what to look for, I’ll mention that the larvae weren’t of the highest quality either; they were too small, and the stromata had been removed. MM mentions that some exporters have been passing along “counterfeit caterpillars,” as it were, so I’d recommend buying it at a reputable, established Chinese pharmacy unless you know what you’re looking for.
If Cordyceps is the most disgusting ingredient; then ginseng is the most famous. Along with cocaine and “megavitamins,” it became America’s de facto “national aphrodisiac” during our collective, post-Vietnam nervous breakdown in the early- and mid-‘Seventies. (So much so, that ginseng-popping health-freaks and “swingers” are almost clichés.)
When taken in moderation (large doses are carcinogenic and have other undesirable side effects -- although small doses, ironically enough, actually inhibit the growth of cancer cells), ginseng is an all-around tonic and chi-builder par excellence. Several years ago, a U.C.L.A professor named Ronald Siegal identified an ailment he called “ginseng abuse syndrome, the symptoms of which were surprisingly similar to those associated with overuse of caffeine or even amphetamines: insomnia, irritability, anxiety, rashes, diarrhea and high blood pressure. So once again, use in moderate quantities.
Among its effects are: “tonif[ying] the primal qi of the five organs, nourish[ing] the yin, reviv[ing] from collapse, stop[ping] heavy bleeding.” American ginseng (Panax quinquefolium) is gentler in its effects and might prove an acceptable substitute. Both, however, are terribly expensive, although they’re readily available, fresh or dried, in most oriental groceries. Those lucky enough to live in the Atlanta area can obtain it at the Buford Highway Farmers’ Market.
Lesser galangal (Alpinia officinarum) is used in much of Southeast Asia to treat gastric ulcers and dyspepsia. In China, it’s used for everything from nausea to hiccups, owing to its ability to “warm the middle,” disperse cold, lower rebellious chi and alleviate pain. It’s considered hot and acrid, and is said to enter the spleen and stomach meridians.
The Koreans eat a similar rejuvenating soup, called samgyetang. It consists of a young chicken stuffed with glutinous rice and then stewed with red dates, scallion, garlic, sesame seed, ginseng and pepper. Each of those ingredients is used in traditional Asian medicine, but I’ve written enough for one day.
G’night and God bless.
