One of the things I love about herbal medicine is the many different ways it can be administered. If foul tasting brews from brown bottles are not for you, another option is a poultice. (Or try my home made herbal extracts instead of commercially manufactured herbs people tell me they arent so bad after all. There are many reasons why hand made herbal extracts taste better than machine made).

Historical novels and texts always used to fascinate me in my pre-herbalist days with their references to poultices, administered by the village wise woman / herb lady / midwife. My formal training as an herbalist didnt go into a lot of detail on poultices except about the technical difference between a poultice and a compress. (A poultice is vegetable material laid over the skin and bandaged in place. A compress is a piece of cloth saturated with oil or an herbal extract (or tea) and held in place with a bandage).

Consequently, when I commenced clinical practice I didnt quite know what to say when anyone asked if they should be poulticing. Feeling a gap in my knowledge, I took myself off to learn from the Queen of Poulticing, Margaret Wright, a retired naturopath who lived nearby.

Margaret is a beautiful old lady with great wisdom and an unerring faith in the ability of the body to heal itself. Like me, she has always seen her role as deciding what natural remedies are needed to best assist that process. Thanks to Margaret, poulticing is not a lost art in these parts. One of her many pearls of wisdom is that poultices are a wonderful tool when treating children as they involve TLC in their application and feel so soothing from the moment they go on.

Most old herb books talk about a poultice of herbs which is covered with a piece of bread, then held in place with a bandage, and left for a few days before being changed. While the effectiveness of this has been dismissed as old wives tales by science, it is worth noting that old fashioned bread (preservative free), made with organic ingredients (what else was there in the old days), goes mouldy in a few days. By some wild coincidence, Penicillin was first made from mould.

Probably the most widely used poultice today is made from grated raw potato. Its hard to find anything better for drawing out infection and foreign material. Applied each night, it is amazing to watch. One of my young clients had two huge mystery boils appear on her leg which even the doctor couldnt explain nor antibiotics clear. Her worried mother came to me for help and I suggested a potato poultice at night and a castor oil compress during the day. This was applied for several months until a piece of stick about 1cm long appeared at the skin surface one morning. Several slightly smaller pieces appeared over the following days. The inflammation then rapidly went and the wound stopped oozing. A fortnight later the girls leg looked completely normal. There was no scarring. As is so often the case with natural remedies, patience, perseverance and the correct remedy were rewarded with complete healing of the body as if the problem had never been.

Garlic poultices are also very popular. These are great for any chest infections and even asthma attacks especially those that come on at three oclock in the morning or when you are miles from nowhere. Garlic is one of natures miracle workers. In a test tube it kills staphylococcal and tuberculosis bacteria as well as parasites and cancer cells. Finely chopped and applied to the feet in a base of olive oil, it will be smelt on the breath within fifteen minutes, hence why a garlic poultice is so good for lung complaints.It is a good alternative for those who do not like the taste of garlic, or who get indigestion from eating garlic.

More posts will follow on speciifc poultices over time, so check back again from time to time for updates. You may even find a video demo on how to apply one!

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