ON HERBAL MEDICINE

2023-01-02

Throughout my life, I've been somewhat averse to the idea of 'traditional' medicine. In a world with advanced medical techniques, using plants to cure ailments seemed backwards.

My grandfather has been living in his house since he moved to this country, in the 80s. In his backyard, there is a big tin shed, with acrylic windows on the roof to let sunlight in. Well, that's what they would have done, if they weren't rotted and black.

So, three generations of my family (me, my dad, and my grandpa) all attempted to replace the acrylic panels on the roof. They were secured with rivets, so we needed to drill through them. My grandfather only owned this huge hammer drill, so we had to use that to destroy the old, rusted rivets.

While doing so, I accidentally grabbed the boiling hot drill bit with my bare hands, leaving a striped burn pattern on my skin. It was excruciatingly painful, so I had to sit out for a while.

My grandmother saw what I had done to my hand, and broke off a piece of her Aloe Vera plant she had growing in the garden. I placed the cool Aloe Vera goo on my wounded hand, and it stung a lot, but within 24 hours, the burn was healed.

Since then, I have been fascinated with what you can do with simple herbal remedies. I read the book The Modern Herbal Dispensatory by Steven Horne, which talks about how to turn plants into medicine.