Rosemary: clearing brain fog and healing the heart

Rosmarinus officinalis          Rosemary            Compass-weed

Traditional use

From earliest times Rosemary’s medicinal virtues were recognised among the people of the Mediterranean region. The first references to the herb were found written in cuneiform on stone tablets unearthed in the northern arc of the Fertile Crescent of today's Iraq dating back 3700 years, though herbal treatments using rosemary probably go back 9000 years.¹

Dioscorides, the first century Greek physician, recommended the herb for its "warming faculty." And its reputation for strengthening memory has been woven into the ceremonies and stories of European culture for at least the past 2500 years.

The ‘dew of the sea’, as is the translation of the Latin origin of the word , was associated in ancient Greece with Aphrodite and Uranus, and later by Christians with the Virgin Mary. A sprig of rosemary under a girl’s pillow, so one folkloric tale tells us, ensured that she would have visions of her future husband .² Thus, love, friendship, memory, constancy, and fidelity or loyalty have been the central themes of rosemary’s ceremonial and therapeutic use in Europe. And the head, heart and reproductive organs are the place to which it has always had an affinity. Indeed the herb was a symbol of feminine authority.

Throughout pagan Europe, rosemary was therefore associated with remembering and reconnecting with friends, ritualised in community festivities at the time of the winter solstice. By the 4th century AD, the Christian Church of Rome had usurped these pagan ceremonies, replacing them with the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ: Christmas. But the pagan symbols—of the evergreen tree adorned with brightly-coloured bells and baubles, mistletoe hanging over doorways, wreaths made of bay laurel, olive, holly and rosemary leaves—and the offering of presents to friends and family members, continue to this day. However, the mediaeval practice of adorning the house and floor with sprigs of rosemary has by and large disappeared.

In Spanish and Italian mediaeval culture, Rosemary was thought to keep evil at bay—infections were often associated with evil—and in France it was burned to purify the air in sickrooms. It was also a standard remedy against the bubonic plague.

Hence Rosemary was traditionally used in the treatment of infections and forgetfulness. Because of its effect upon the nervous system generally it was also prescribed for depression, insomnia and sleep disturbed by nightmares, and for headaches and palpitations. Because of its effect upon the cardiovascular system, it was also used for oedema, poor circulation, and congestion (or stagnation) of blood in the reproductive organs. Its antispasmodic yet stimulating actions also saw it being used for colic, anorexia, and rheumatic aches and pains. The herb or its distilled oil has also been used as a preservative for wine or food, an insect repellent, and topically applied to the body to stimulate circulation, hair growth, and nerve regeneration, and thereby to tighten and beautiful the skin.

Elemental Qualities

Taste: Pungent (pine-like), slightly bitter, savoury, sweet, astringent.

Temperature and Effect: Very warm, slightly dry.

Specific Patient Presentation/Condition   

Rosemary is specific for any patient who manifests the qualities of cold, weak, slow, heavy, damp or watery, and perhaps irritated in his or her constitutional attributes or disease characteristics. It has an affinity, but is not limited, to those with the following attributes:

·         Slow in movements and thinking, and lethargic in energy

·         Sensitive to the cold; feeling cold

·         Poor short term and long term memory

·         Feelings of heaviness and stagnation, especially in the lower torso

·         Emotionally labile, very sensitive or weak

·         Tendency to depression, insomnia or sleep disturbed by nightmares

·         Disturbances to appetite and digestion

·         Pale, dull, cold skin, and dull or thinning head hair

·         Poor vision, and an absence of a sparkle in the eyes

·         Having an illness that leaves one feeling frail and feeble

Rosemary has an especial affinity to the psyche, and to the brain, nerves and nervous system generally, and, in conjunction with that, to the heart and circulation generally; hence it has similarities to Motherwort. It also has an affinity to the organs of reproduction, specifically the uterus in females and the prostate gland in males.

Rosemary is definitely indicated if, in consultation, the idea comes to mind that a thick fog has settled upon the patient’s mind and body. For Rosemary think warm invigorating sunshine.

From Tradition to Biomedical Science

English herbalist Maud Grieve conjectures that rosemary was unknown in England until about the 14^th century.³ The oil was first extracted by distillation in about 1330 by Majorcan philosopher, Raymundus Lullus.⁴

Despite the use of Rosemary by herbalists through the centuries, science remained disinterested in this plant. Up until  1970 only a handful of studies had been conducted, almost entirely by French and German scientists. Until the turn of the century roughly another 40 studies had been conducted.

However, during the past decade there have been well over 350 studies. Today, PubMed lists about 430 studies on Rosmarinus officinalis.

Curiously, because many herbal practitioners today have been seduced by so-called  'evidence-based' and commercial approaches to medical herbalism , the use of rosemary for improving cognitive functions, especially memory, is being lost to Ginkgo biloba leaf extract.

Traditionally, however, Chinese physicians used Ginkgo seed, not Ginkgo leaf; and this astringent remedy was prescribed for people with bronchial catarrh and cystitis, and women with vaginal discharge.⁶ Ginkgo's current popularity as a cerebrovascular remedy for cognitive dysfunction in Alzheimer's disease, senile dementia, post-stroke treatment and so on, began in 1965 when the German herbal manufacturing company Dr Willmar Schwabe began manufacturing a Ginkgo biloba extract called 'Tebonin'. Since that time, according to PubMed, there have been 2865 studies on Gingko biloba.

Proof that modern science has jumped into bed with commerce is found in the connection between science’s discoveries about a traditional remedy, rosemary in this instance, and the commercial exploitation thereof: in 1987, researchers at Rutgers University in New Jersey, USA, patented a food preservative derived from rosemary.⁵ The chemical, called rosmaridiphenol, is a very stable antioxidant useful in cosmetics and plastic food packaging. Today the United States Patent and Trademark Office lists 50 patents on products containing Rosmarinus officinalis.

Excerpts from Historical Reports on Rosemary's Efficacy

The following excerpts originate from the observations and experiences of millions of people throughout Europe and the Middle East over the past 3700 years.

Please note: Observation and experience are at the very heart of gathering evidence. The very word 'evidence' derives from the Latin 'e', meaning 'out of', and 'video', meaning 'I see'. Thus observation and experience are the very basis of empirical knowledge.

Over the past 15 to 20 years, however, there has been an orchestrated campaign to assess herbal remedies and other traditional therapies by the criteria of so-called 'eviidence-based medicine'. My belief is that this is being driven not by a quest for knowledge, since there is overwhelming evidence for the therapeutic efficacy of thousands of herbal remedies that have been ingested, inhaled, or rubbed onto the skin by the world's peoples, probably since we first walked upon the earth. This accumulated evidence constitutes the longest clinical trials ever.

I believe there is an agenda, a political and commercial agenda, to undermine traditional therapies. After all, biomedicine has a great deal to learn, and potentially a great deal to fear, from the successes of traditional medicine.  Assessing traditional therapies by biomedical criteria of "evidence-based' medicine is bound to undermine traditional approaches to healing and cause confusion for students and the lay public.

Clearly our world today is driven by power and greed, evident in the political and commercial exploitation of our planet and its people through science and technology. And, as I have identified in the first volume of my book, Cry for Health, the casualty of this stampede has been human and planetary health.

Having traditional herbal remedies assessed by 'evidence-based', laboratory-ensconced, often rat-testing, white-coated researchers who are immersed in the biomedical model of disease—it has no model of health whatsoever—is tantamount to asking these same scientists to assess the merits of the individual words in each of the works of Shakespeare. Why?

Because traditional medicine was, and still is, an art, unlike the politico-commercial science and technology underpinning biomedicine.

Keep in mind that medical treatment throughout history is based on the following: the physician first assesses or reads functions and changed functions (extra-functions)  in a patient's body or mind; from concepts learned about health and healing (or, in the case of biomedicine, about disease only), the skilled physician identifies the body or mind's attempts to heal. Unskilled physicians invariably identify functional or histological changes as the body or mind going wrong, haywire, awry. Finally the physician uses therapies, either to counter the body or mind's functions, or to assist the patient's attempts to heal through removing toxic or inimical influences and providing the patient with remedies and therapies that assist the body to heal.

Traditional medicine, as opposed to biomedicine, is the art of assessing the humours and/or physiological functions of a patient, and then, by using a philosophy that is founded upon the premise that the body and mind of each individual person know how to heal if given what is needed—and the removal of things that are inimical or toxic—the wise and skilled herbal physician would consequently prescribe not just one herb, but a combination of them to synergistically influence the body and mind of the patient. 'Evidence -based' medicine, however, is completely clueless to synergy. 

In the following quotes, you will find traditional wisdom about the benefits of rosemary:

Assyrian herbal scribe, 1700 BC (translated by RC Thompson, 1949)

"Rosemary for decayed teeth, apply alone..."⁷

Dioscorides, De Materia Medica, about 40 AD (translated by Tess Anne Osbaldeston, 2000)

"Libanotis which ye Romans call Rosmarinus, and they which plait wreaths for the head use it...it is warming and cures jaundice. It is boiled in water and given to drink before exercises, and then he who exercises bathes and is drenched with wine. It is also mixed with remedies for the removal of fatigue, and in gleucinum [syruped pulp of grapes in olive oil] ointment"⁸

Pliny, Naturall Historie, 77 AD (translated by Holland, 1601)

"The use of it, after it be one yeare old, is most wholesome for the stomack."⁹

Richard Bankes, Bankes Herball, 1525

"Take the timber thereof and burn it to coals and make powder thereof and rubbe thy teeth thereof and it shall keep thee youngly."⁹

Le Grant Herbier (French), The Grete Herbal, 1526 (translated by Peter Treveris, 1516)

"For weyknesse of ye brayne. Agaynst weykness of the brayne and coldnesse thereof, seth rosmarin in wyne and lete the pacyent receye the smoke at his nose and kepe his heed warme."⁹

Rembert Dodens, A Niewe Herball, 1758 (translated by Henry Lyte)

"The Arrabians and their successours Physitions, do say that Rosmarie comforteth the brayne, the memory, and the inward sences, and that it restoreth speech, especially the confertue made of the floures thereof with sugar, to be receyed dayly fasting. The ashes of Rosmarie burnte, doth fasten loose teeth, and beautifieth the same if they be rubbed therewith."⁹

Thomas Coghan, The Haven of Health, 1584

"Take Rosmarie with the flowers, or without a hand full or more, seeth it in white wine a good space, and put thereto if you may a little cinomon, then drinke it and wash your mouth therewith. The same wine without cinomon is good to wash the face, and hands, for it maketh a verie cleare skinne."⁹

Thomas Robinson, A Nosegay for Lovers, 1584:

"Rosemary is for remembrance,

Between us daie and night;

Wishing that I might always have

You present in my sight."⁹

John Gerard, The Herball, 1597

"The distilled water of the floures of Rosemary being drunk at morning and evening first and last, taketh away the stench of the mouth and breath, and maketh it very sweet, if there be added thereto, to steep or infuse for certaine daies, a few Cloves, Mace, Cinnamon, and a little Annise seed.

"The floures made up into plates with Sugar after the manner of Sugar Roset and eaten, comfort the heart and make it merry, quicken the spirits, and make them more lively."⁹

William Langham, The Garden of Health, 1597

"Seethe much Rosemary, and bathe therein to make thee lusty, lively, joyfull, likening and youngly."⁹

Miguel De Cervantes, Don Quixote, 1605 (translated by Tobias Smollett, 1761)

"One of the goatherds perceiving the wound, bad him give himself no trouble about it, for he would apply a remedy that would heal it in a trice; so saying, he took some leaves of rosemary, which grew in great plenty around the hut, and having chewed and mixed them with a little salt, applied the poultice to his ear, and binding it up carefully, assured him, as it actually happened, that it would need no other plaister."⁹

John Parkinson, Paradisis, 1629

"Take a quantity of the flowers of Rosemary, according to your own will either more or lesse, put them into a strong glasse close stopped, set them in in hot horse dung for fourteen dayes, which then being taken forth of the dung, and unstopped, tye a fine linnen cloth over the mouth, and turn down the mouth thereof into the mouth of another strong glasse, which being set in the hot sun, an oyle will distil down into the lower glasse; which preserves as precious for users before recited, and many more, as experience by practice my informe divers."⁹

Nicholas Culpeper, Complete Herbal, 1653

"The Sun claims dominion over it. The decoction of Rosemary in wine, helps the cold distillations of rheum into the eyes, and all other cold diseases of the head and brain, as the giddiness or swimmings therein, drowsiness or dulness, the dumb palsy, or loss of speech, the lethargy, and falling- sickness, to be both drunk, and the temples bathed therewith.

"It helps the pains in the gums and teeth, by rheum falling into them, not by putrefaction, causing an evil smell from them, or stinking breath. It helps a weak memory, and quickens the senses. It is very comfortable to the stomach in all the cold maladies thereof; helps both retention of meat, and digestion, the decoction of the powder being taken in wine. It is a remedy for the windiness in the stomach, bowels, and spleen, and expels it powerfully. It helps those that are liver-grown, by opening the obstructions thereof. It helps dim eyes, and procures a clear sight, the flowers thereof being taken all the while it is flowering every morning fasting, with bread and salt. Both the flowers and leaves are very profitable for [women that are troubled with] the whites, if they be daily taken.

"The dried leaves shred small, and smoked as tobacco, helps those that have any cough, phthisis, or consumption, by warming and drying the thin distillations which cause those diseases. The leaves are very much used in bathings; and made into ointments or oil, are good to help cold benumbed joints, sinews, or members. The chymical oil drawn from the leaves and flowers, is a sovereign help for all the diseases aforesaid, to touch the temples and nostrils with two or three drops for all the diseases of the head and brain spoken of before; as also to take one drop, two, or three, as the case requires, for the inward diseases; yet must it be done with discretion, for it is very quick and piercing, and therefore but a little must be taken at a time.

"There is also another oil made by insolation in this manner: Take what quantity you will of the flowers, and put them into a strong glass close stopped, tie a fine linen cloth over the mouth, and turn the mouth down into another strong glass, which being set in the sun, an oil will distil down into the lower glass, to be preserved as precious for divers uses, both inward and outward, as a sovereign balsam to heal the disease before mentioned, to clear dim sight, and take away spots, marks, and scars in the skin."¹⁰

Complementary Herbs
The following are a sample of effective herbal combinations involving Rosmarinus officinalis:

Rosemary is often combined with Ginger to disseminate its actions into peripheral tissues.

To improve memory, and alleviate depression combine one part each of Rosemary and Ginger with three parts each of Gotu kola, Withania and Siberian ginseng.

For the treatment of congestive dymenorrhoea, combine one part each of Rosemary, Ginger and False unicorn root.

For rheumatic aches and pains combine one part each of Rosemary and Ginger with three parts each of Cat’s claw, Turmeric and Hawthorn.

For those who are prone to infections combine one part each of Rosemary and Liquorice with three parts each of Pau d’arco and Turmeric.

Caution

High doses of Rosemary can increase heat in the body, irritate tissues generally and should not be prescribed for acute inflammatory conditions.

References

1. Kelly K. History of Medicine: Early Civilizations, Prehistoric Times to 500 CE, Facts on File, New York, NY, USA, 2009; p. 23.
2. Baker M. Discovering the Folklore of Plants, Shire Publications Ltd, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, UK, 1981; p. 55. 
3. Grieve M, Leyel CF (editor). A Modern Herbal, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, UK, 1977; pp. 681−683 
4. Stuart M (editor). The Encyclopedia of Herbs and Herbalism, Guild Publishing, London, UK, 1985; p. 254 
5. Chang SS, Ho C-T, Houlihan CM. 'Isolation of a novel antioxidant rosmaridiphenol from Rosmarinus officinalis L.' United States Patent 4638095. Online accessed: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4638095.html 
6. Bensky D, and Gamble A (edited and translated). Chinese Herbal Medicine: Materia Medica, Eastland Press, Seattle, Washington, USA, 1986; p. 560. 
7. Thompson RC. A Dictionary of Assyrian Botany, British Academy, London, UK, 1949; p. 80. 
8. Dioscorides, (Osbaldeston TA, edited and translated), De Materia Medica, Ibidis Press, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2000; p. 467.
9. Smith KV, The Illustrated Earth Garden Herbal: A Herbal Companion, Thomas Nelson Australia Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia, 1978; pp. 110–113.
10. Culpeper N. Complete Herbal, 1653, Reprint: W Foulsham & Co Ltd, London, UK; pp. 302–303.