What swells up to 90 feet, has lan...

What swells up to 90 feet, has lance-shaped leaves, is establish along streams in the United States, is native to Europe and in Latin is called Salix alba? Give up?

Well, to such a degree did I before finding disclosed these interesting particulars (in nurse and Duke's A Field Guide to Medicinal Plants: Eastern and Central North America, 1990) about a tree whose bark has traditionally been used for a variety of indications, including: diarrhea, flushs pain, rheumatism, arthritis, poison-ivy rash, and many others: a tree called white willow.

3 species of Salix genus used for medicinal purposes

About 300 species, in fact, of the genus Salix are named willow, although, generally speaking, the three varieties which are most numerous used for medicinal purposes are Salix alba, Salix purpurea, and Salix fragilis.

According to WE Shewell-Cooper's Plants, Flowers and Herbs of the Bible (1977) the Hebrew word for willow is ereb A willow tree is mentioned in Ezekiel xvii 5 as tsapht-saphah, and near believe that "it may be the oleander or Rose Bay (Nerium oleandea) which is set flourishing very happily by the watercourses of Palestine," says Shewell-Cooper.

It appears that a weeping willow may be the Salix babylonica which came to England from Egypt's Euphrates river valley, and that the willow mentioned in the 137th Psalm -- "We hanged our harps immediately after the willows" -- may have been the Salix medemii which is construct in Persia and Armenia today.

Down end the centuries, willow bark has been used to fight pain of different adumbrations including headache, fever, arthritis, taste and angina. It is cited in ancient Assyrian, Egyptian and, native of greece texts, and was personally used through Hippocrates, Galen and Dioscorides to combat febrile diseases and pain. In addition, many Native American tribes have used it for headache, ferment sore muscles, chills and rheumatism, Dr Daniel B Mowrey points out

Native Americans also drank white willow bark tea to alleviate aches and pains, and "some bigots of herbal treatment still do," adds Andrew Weil, MD in his part Health and Healing (1995).

Although it was utilized in the middle 1700 to treat malaria, it was not until the period between 1821 to 1829 that extracts of the bark were first standarded at which time salicin was formally identified. interestingly enough, salicylic acid derived from salicin (which tend hitherwards from the bark) is a precursor pay with an abatement Foster and Duke remind us, "to the greatest in quantity widely used semisynthetic drug, acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin)."

Although practitioners of allopathy typically point to aspirin as being stronger than willow bark (in its raw form), Mowrey informs us that "the bark yields other decomposition byproduct of salicin that may enhance the analgesic (pain-relieving), antipyretic (fever-reducing), disinfectant and antiseptic properties of the product" positive events you cannot get from taking aspirin.

In point of fact, late studies have shown that an entire series of phenolic blends such as salicortin, fragilin and tremulacin, are also existing in the bark in significant quantities. All of these composes are precursors (or "pro-drugs") that are later "convert to the active principle, salicylic acid, in the intestinal tract and the liver," Varro Tyler remarks in his part Herbs of Choice: The Therapeutic Use of Phytomedicinals (1994)

Therapeutic properties of willow bark denoteed more slowly, but more effectively, than aspirin

Because of the zephyr-like gradual conversion process, "the therapeutic properties of willow bark are give vent toed more slowly but continue to be effective for a longer time than if salicylate (aspirin) itself were administered," Tyler adds.

But willow bark most numerous certainly is effective for pain. Included in comparison with other righteous pain-relieving herbal supplements (wood betony, skullcap, rosemary leaf, depressed vervain and kelp), Mowrey judges that willow bark "has the greatest in number immediate effect," although he includes the caution that "pain is a symptom and not a disease," and that we should find abroad what it is that is causing our pain while we are trying to relieve it.

Willow bark has also shown near efficacy as part of an overall herbal approach to build immunity and fight infection.

In Power Plants: Building Immunity With Herbs (1995) by the agency of Linda Rector-Page, Ph.D., N.D., willow bark is listed with the description that it "inhibits the production of certain inflammatory prostagiandins and enhances immune response"

Rector-Page also lists willow as a valuable auxiliary add to in treating certain sexually transmitted diseases in her work Fighting Infections With Herbs: Sexually Transmitted Diseases (1995)

REFERENCES

Foster Steven and Duke James A., PhD A Field Guide to Medicinal Plants: Eastern and Central America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co 1990 p 286

Hallowell, Michael. Herbal Healing: A Practical Introduction to Medicinal Herbs. Garden City Park, NY: Avery Publishing, 1994

Harris, Ben Charles. The Compleat Herbal: Being A Description of the Origins, the Lore, the Characteristics, the patterns and the Prescribed Uses of Medicinal Herbs, Including An Alphabetical Guide to All habitual Medicinal Plants. Atlanta, Ga.: Larchmont works 1975.