agk’s Library of Herbal First Aide
When intense heat is applied to the skin the living cells are destroyed. If only the outer layer of the skin is involved there will just be red, rough, painful tissue. This is called a first degree burn. If the damage extends deeper a blister raises up as the body floods in water, between the dead and living layers of skin tissue, to lubricate and protect what remains. This is considered a second degree burn. If the burn kills tissue all the way through the skin an open sore or wound, surrounded by red, rough, painful skin remnants will appear. This is a third degree burn. Because it is open it is more dangerous because it can get infected. If it is large and extensive so much dead tissue breaks down in the blood and liver that the kidneys are shut down by the excessive protein waste going through the urinary channels. This is what used to cause death from burns in the old days, before kidney dialysis was available. Another problem with the third degree burn is that the matrix for making new skin has been destroyed and only scar tissue can form – according to the current understanding of biomedicine. However, in traditional American Indian medicine we are firmly taught that there are remedies which can literally resurrect the ability of the cells to make damaged tissue. This I have seen with my own eyes.
Sometimes we have to be very careful with regard to the exact species in our selection of a healing plant, while other times we can use any member of a genus or even a closely related genus. Such is the case here. Both agrimony and cinquefoil, and probably also their cousin avens, are beneficial for injuries where one holds the breath to stop the pain. That action releases endorphins – the body’s natural opiates – triggering a palliative effect. It is not curative – one needs to “breathe through the pain.” That is what agrimony and cinquefoil help us do. That makes them especially beneficial for burns, because this is an injury where one commonly holds the breath. Or rather, agrimony and cinquefoil are specific for burns which cause one to restrict the breath.
These are my favorite burn remedies, partly because I discovered them (if I can steal the credit from divine providence) and partly because it works especially well on my own burns, which tend to fit the pattern here. One day I was mowing in my field with my big brush mower when, through some combination of inattentiveness and stupidity I put the palm of my hand on the manifold of the engine. I heard a sizzle, smelled burned flesh and felt tremendous pain intantaneously. Looking at the palm a second later it was one huge raised blister. I staggered over to a patch of sweet leaf, which I knew to be a good burn medicine, chewed up a bunch of the flowers and put the poultice on my hand but to no immediate effect. The pain felt just as bad and the wound looked just as serious. I staggered up to the house and asked my friend Lise Wolff, who was then an apprentice but is now a fine herbalist in her own right, if she would stay with me for the next couple hours as I was afraid I might pass out. I tried St. John’s wort, nettles and other things, but nothing worked. After about an hour, in a great paroxysm of pain I let my breath out like steam from a kettle, wincing with the pain, but saw a picture in my mind’s eye of a tiny cinquefoil leaf.
Just the day before I had been out in Montrose seeing a case and noticed the tiny leaf in the lawn. I wondered what it would cure. “That wasn’t a coincidence,” I said after it popped into my mind. I had some cinquefoil (Potentilla recta) tincture I had made a few years before but never used. I put some on the wound and the effect was immediate and exquisite. I sank back in relief. The pain went down and I never felt it so bad again. It took a week for the burn to heal but that was to be expected.
One thing I noticed about the relief when I put the cinquefoil on was that it felt exactly like there was a nerve in the palm my hand which split into five parts that went to every finger – like a cinquefoil leaf. As far as I can ascertain, there is no such nerve, but it felt like there was. Cinquefoil gets its name (cinque for five and foil for leaf) from the hand-shaped leaf – it looks like marijuana.
Now I knew cinquefoil was good for burns but I wasn’t sure if agrimony would be too. Next time I burned myself I tried the cinquefoil, just to be sure, then planned on taking the agrimony. However, the little burn went away and I didn’t need another dose. Finally I got a chance to test the agrimony. I was visiting my friend Susan in the city. She had some spaghetti noodles in a pot on the stove. She lifted off the pot, it caught on the burner, and the boiling water spilled on her arm. It was terrifically painful but Susan is tougher than just about anybody I know, so she still managed to get the pot to the sink.1 At any rate, Susan was holding her breath from the pain. “Oh boy,” I thought. “I don’t have any cinquefoil but I have agrimony so I’ll have to use that and we’ll see if it works.” I ran out to the car, grabbed a bottle and put some on a tissue, which we draped over the burn (first degree). Relief was immediate and we had a nice dinner. Susan put it on once more for pain in the evening and was fine.
These are superlative burn remedies, but they only work when a person has to hold their breath from the pain. Maybe there are some exceptions, but I leave that for others to explore.
According to the American Indian view, burns should not be treated with cold but with heat. This was related to me by one of my teachers, Tis Mal Crow. It is also mentioned by an old Native gentleman who explained Indian healing to Elizabeth Janos (see her book, Country Folk Medicine, 1997). Cold only drives the heat further in, but heat allows the burn or fire to flow out in its similar so to speak, into the hot medicine.
Tis Mal taught that sweet leaf is a fiery hot remedy that will draw the heat back to the plant and out of the body. The flower tops need to be exposed to saliva to unlock the burn medicine in the plant so they are chewed and placed on the wound. He said, “the little old lady who taught me this said, ‘the same thing that turns the cracker sweet in your mouth turns sweet leaf into a burn medicine.’”
Sweet leaf is especially effective for burns where there is a cold sweat. This often accompanies a burn where there is shock.
This is an old European burn medicine, still often used and often found effective. Sweet leaf and lavender make a good combination as a burn cream because they both have beautiful smelling essential oils.
This remedy enters into use through homeopathy. It is a “like treats like” remedy since nettles causes burning. Dr. Margaret Tyler made it popular in homeopathy. See her Homoeopathic Drug Pictures and Dr. Dorothy Shepherd’s A Physician’s Posy for case histories. Nettles is probably most beneficial for getting the damaged protein in the bloodstream through the kidneys after a burn.
When she threatened some gangbangers when she was a housing code inspector (they were trying to open a gas pipe and blow up an apartment building), one of the landlords said, “Ma’am, pardon the expression, but you’ve got more balls than I do!”↩
------------------------------------------- from Matthew Wood: THE EARTHWISE HERBAL © 2008–2009 North Atlantic Books (two vols) -------------------------------------------