Echinacea

by Gudrun Maybaum
October 2001

Purple Coneflower

Botanical name: Echinacea purpurea, E. augustofolia, and E. pallida
Family Name: Asteraceae or Aster

History

Echinacea has a long tradition of use by the Native Americans. They knew of the power of this plant in treating or preventing many different ailments and used it medically more than any other plant.

A group of doctors, called the Eclectics, who practiced mainly botanical medicine and were prominent from the 1830s to the 1930s where a major force in bringing Echinacea to the forefront of herbal medicine.

American medicine recognized its value and used it since the beginning of the 20th century. The Europeans discovered it in the 1930s and use it ever since extensively for strengthening the immune system, and against flu, colds and different infections. 

Nutrition

The active ingredients in Echinacea are alkylamides, chicoric acid and polysaccharides, which all act as immunomodulators. It contains vitamin A, E, and C, plus iron, iodine, copper, sulphure and potassium.

The roots of the Echinacea Angustifolia and the flowers of the Echinacea Purpurea are supposed to have the most potent healing power. Ideal would be combination of this two. 

Healing

Today thousands of Europeans and Americans use echinacea preparations against colds and flu, minor infections, and a host of other major and minor ailments.

Echinacea is the best known and researched herb for stimulating the immune system. That Echinacea is well worth its century old reputation was shown in over 500 scientific studies. There are several constituents in Echinacea that cause to increase the production and activity of white blood cells, lymphocytes, and macrophages.

Due to its antibacterial and antiviral action is it one of the best remedies for helping the body rid itself of microbial infections.

Echinacea also stimulates the lymphatic vascular system and

has been shown to improve the body's resistance to infections such as colds and influenza, laryngitis, tonsillitis, and catarrhal conditions of the nose and sinus.

Echinacea facilitates the healing of infected wounds, boils, abscesses, carbuncles and other such infections.There has been also success with in the treatment of glandular fever and post-viral fatigue syndrome. Evidently whole plant preparations are helpful in allergies. 

In short Echinacea has some antibiotic properties. But its main action is in stimulating and enhancing the activities of the immune system, and increasing the body’s ability to resist infections and giving it the strength to overcome the invasion of virus and bacteria. While doing that, it eliminates toxins and cellular debris and helps so to purify the blood. 

There are many different qualities of Echinacea on the market und we often don’t know if we have a product that really has the properties to help us when we need it. Here is a little test: if you put some of your Echinacea on your tongue, it should cause a tingling, numbing sensation in your mouth and increase the saliva. If that is not the case, the product you have is prepared with not enough herbs, or with old ingredients or it has been produced in another way that it lost its healing properties. 

Case study

The first time I used the Echinacea/garlic combination on a bird was about 7 years ago with Janis, a then one year old green wing macaw. I thought that she did not look quite right. Her eye were dull and she was not her bold little self. After hours and hours at the vet, she (the vet) finally said that the lab tests show, that the numbers of the kidney’s and liver are way out of line. She assumed that it was caused by too many pellets in Janis’ diet. So she suggested to give Janis an antibiotic. We should give this antibiotic for two weeks and then come back to make more blood tests to see if it helped. If it would not help, we had to try another antibiotic. I said “no, thanks”, took my little girl home, and started her on a diet with lots of fresh food, garlic and Echinacea. After three day’s Janis had her old cookie attitude and her shiny eyes back. 

I used the garlic-echinacea combination instead antibiotics often since them and had always success with it.

References

School of Natural Healing by Dr.John R Christpher, 
Herbal Medicine by Sharol Tilgner, N.D. 
Today’s Herbal Health by Louise Tenney, M. H. 

www.whole.healthconnetion.com/library/echinaces.htm 
www.holisticonline.com/herbal-med/herbs/h50.htm www.forthrt.com/~roland/herbfarm.html