23SW01 - History and Clinical Uses of Eupatorium perfoliatum and Asclepias tuberosa

Speaker: Paul Bergner, Medical Herbalist In the 1790s, some younger doctors of the Regular School of medicine (bloodletters) began advocating for the use of these two herbs in febrile illness and pneumonia as alternatives specifically for bloodletting.  Not the Thomsonians, the regular allopaths. Subsequently, across the 1800s, all schools of medicine used them as primary medicines.  Both were official in the US Pharmacopoeia throughout the 1800s. The British herbalists used them, and one Brit who is stated to have treated 10,000 patients using these herbs with others during the 1918 flu pandemic said he did not lose a patient. These two were also among the top herbs to treat influenza among the Eclectics in the US during the 1918 pandemic. Bring it up to today, and these two herbs are extremely valuable in COVID, and I have seen or have case reports on one or the other being a "game-changer" when introduced to an individual with long lingering symptoms. This would review the science on each herb, the history of use in medicine, and practical means of applying, with dose and form, and case studies from my own experience. This is appealing to me for how it intertwines medical history with practical therapeutics.

Related product: The PowerPoint for this recording is available here: 2023 Southwest Conference on Botanical Medicine: Conference Book Download (PDF)