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  • Article

There’s more to gingerbread than ginger

‘Bake-Off’ finalist Mary-Anne Boermans treats us to the warm and enticing pleasures of gingerbread over centuries.

  • Article

Getting sexy with cinnamon

Add some flavour to your love life with this spice. It will warm up more than just your buns.

  • Article

Love, longing and tea from the polski sklep

For people of Polish origin in the UK, herbal tea is closely tied to health and shared history. Kasia Tomasiewicz explores her changing relationship to these tea-related cultural habits.

  • Article

What Black women do when the NHS fails them

Sabrina-Maria Anderson explores misogynoir – hatred of Black women – within the NHS, and how women like her are consequently turning to other sources of medical support.

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Images

  • Ancient herbalists and scholars of medicinal lore (Galen, Pliny, Hippocrates etc.); and Venus and Adonis in the gardens of Adonis. Woodcut, 1532.
  • Ancient herbalists and scholars of medicinal lore (Galen, Pliny, Hippocrates etc.); and Venus and Adonis in the gardens of Adonis. Woodcut, 1532.
  • Ancient herbalists and scholars of medicinal lore (Galen, Pliny, Hippocrates etc.); and Venus and Adonis in the gardens of Adonis. Woodcut, 1532.
  • Ancient herbalists and scholars of medicinal lore (Galen, Pliny, Hippocrates etc.); and Venus and Adonis in the gardens of Adonis. Woodcut, 1532.
  • Rhodiola rosea L. Crassulaceae Golden root, roseroot Distribution: Arctic, Eastern North America, mountains of central Asia. Herbalists regard it as having curative properties for diseases as diverse as cancer, influenza, depression and other conditions. It has not been licensed for use in manufactured herbal medicines in the UK. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Herbalist' Garden.
  • Petasites hybridus (L.)G.Gaertn., B.Mey. & Scherb. Asteraceae. Butterbur, Bog rhubarb. Distribution: Europe, NW Asia. Culpeper (1650) writes: “The roots are ... exceeding good in violent and pestilential fevers, they provoke the terms, expel poison, and kill worms.” Modern herbalists recommend it for a wide range of therapies, but it contains pyrrolizidine alkaloids, which are hepatotoxic and cause liver cancers. Nevertheless, in a trial aimed at reducing frequency of migraine attacks, a standardised commercial preparation was well tolerated, and was effective at higher doses, but placebo in this trial reduced migraines by over 50% in 49% of the patients (Neurology 2004
  • Petasites hybridus (L.)G.Gaertn., B.Mey. & Scherb. Asteraceae. Butterbur, Bog rhubarb. Distribution: Europe, NW Asia. Culpeper (1650) writes: “The roots are ... exceeding good in violent and pestilential fevers, they provoke the terms, expel poison, and kill worms.” Modern herbalists recommend it for a wide range of therapies, but it contains pyrrolizidine alkaloids, which are hepatotoxic and cause liver cancers. Nevertheless, in a trial aimed at reducing frequency of migraine attacks, a standardised commercial preparation was well tolerated, and was effective at higher doses, but placebo in this trial reduced migraines by over 50% in 49% of the patients (Neurology 2004
  • Medical Herbalist's Practice Room.
  • Medical Herbalist's Practice Room
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