Ancient Medications

by Owen Jones⁽¹⁹⁵⁾ Red Star

http://the-real-way.com

Dork Anchan - Cough Medicine?

As you all know, the way that it works with medicine is: you get sick, you go to the doctor, he/she gives you a prescription, you purchase that, take it and hopefully make a full recovery. In a way, it has always been like that. Individuals went to the most skilled person in the village for advice on how to treat an ailment, a couple of herbs were prescribed and a donation was given.

The only real dissimilarity in the method nowadays is that then, there was a far higher general understanding of the power of herbs. These days, in the Developed World at least, the medical profession and the pharmaceuticals have managed to wean us off herbs by one manner or another - normally fear.

The fact is that most drugs are manufactured from herbs or plants or from synthesized chemicals found in herbs and plants. In a way, all we have done is substituted buying for picking.

OK, I know that it is more complicated than that. Drugs are often combinations that go well together and being told to take one tablet a day saves you having to be anxious about overdosing, but there are still frequently side-effects. Simply read the leaflet inside the box of your next box of pills.

Mine says: anxiety, fainting, erectile dysfunction, low blood pressure, diarrheoa and heart failure. Enchanting, isn't it? They are pills for high blood pressure (beta-blockers). I live in a small village in northern Thailand, where high blood pressure is not a difficulty, but I know one old lady who has it and high cholesterol and her nurse showed her which tree to pick leaves from to brew a tea. She does not take tablets, but I still do.

There is also a woman who began coming into our garden four months ago to pick purple flowers off a kind of wisteria that we grow (dork anchan). 'It is for my son's very bad cough', she said. Asthma, I think she meant.

Anyway, she picks a handful a week and her son is fine. I had a cough at Christmas and tried it myself. I drank two cups of tea before going to bed and I drank the cold dregs in the morning, but my cough had already gone.

The hottest time of the year here is March - May, after which it is still hot but the monsoons come and cool it down. Last year, for the first time in my life I experienced from prickly heat in the hot snap. This year it began again, but someone recommended Aloe Vera.

'Naturally', said my wife and went into the garden to cut some. She cut two small 'leaves' and I spent three days smearing the sap onto the affected areas. It had almost gone on the second day, but it vanished on the third day and has not returned despite the fact that it has become hotter since then.

A lot of individuals are taking another look at traditional medicines and I am going to be one of them. The difficulty in our village is that my Thai is not fluent, only my wife speaks some English and people are frightened to talk of the old ways in case I think that they are backward.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on several subjects, but is now concerned with the macular degeneration test. If you would like to know more, please go to our website at Macular Degenerative Disease

Article submitted Monday, April 18, 2011 & read 216 times.

Owen Jones writes on many subjects and is currently running several websites. He was born in Wales but now lives in northern, rural Thailand.

Leave your comments through Blogz:

» left by Bruce Horst (1 year 29 days ago.)

What a beautiful picture of flowers, Owen. And with a name like 'dork anchan' they seem like flowers I should be growing!
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» left by Owen from Uttaradit, Thailand (1 year 29 days ago.)
It grows very easily here, Bruce, and produces a beautiful canopy.
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» left by David Tanguay (1 year 29 days ago.)

Interesting article Owen, thanks for sharing.
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» left by Owen from Thailand (1 year 29 days ago.)
Thanks, David.

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