Handbook of Canary Folk Medicine - The Secrets of Our Old Herbalists by Jose Jaen is a wonderful collection old remedies which was written in Spanish and has now been translated into English.
This glimpse into the past and the tough way of life for the Canary Islanders is a breath of fresh air. The acknowledgements alone told me I was going to enjoy this book.
"...My greatest respect and veneration goes to the elderly people, who as 'Masters of Life' have taught me to observe Nature with patience and live without fearing illness or death."
The book is a manual of day to day living as known by the elderly herbalists of the Island, the curanderos or those that cure as they are called in Spanish. Many generations of wisdom along with much trial and error has left the people with a knowledge of plant properties that would be a shame to lose.
Jaen decided to publish his "notebooks" after ten years of field work, for the benefit of those far and wide not only the Canary folk and as such prevent some of this knowledge going to the grave.
The book is divided into health problems such as:
- Alcoholism, tobacco and drug-addiction
- Asthma and bronchitis
- Mouth, pyorrhoea and infections
- Hair, baldness
- Cancer
- Cholesterol
- Heart
- Debility, fatigue and anaemia
- Diabetes
- Diarrhoea
- Headaches
- Pain, rheumatism and arthritis
- Stomach and digestion
- Constipation
- High temperature, fever
- Throat, hoarseness, tonsillitis.....
As you can see this book has advice and remedies from baldness to varicose veins, if offers a wealth of advice for herb teas, plants to use for toothaches and what to use to help kick the smoking habit.
It's a gem of a book with 125 pages of advice, recipes, plant photographs and drawings of plants for easy recognition when out gathering in your garden or in the wild. Its pages will be dipped into again and again for inspiration advice and alternatives to a doctor's visit.
So if you want a natural cure for warts or a home remedy for baldness this is the book for you. Fortunately the remedy of rubbing stinging nettles into the scalp to cure baldness has an alternative cure, one which my husband is far happier to try.
Handbook of Canary Folk Medicine - The Secrets of Our Old Herbalists by Jose Jaen Otero is published by Canarias El Paraiso with athe ISBN 9 78847961634
Rachel L. Webb - Rachel L Webb lives in and writes mainly about Andalucia. She enjoys exploring the region and shares her explorations through her website ...
