Below you will find all the information you need to know about Meadowsweet.A plant used during detox cures.
Focus on: meadowsweet
As an introduction, it is relevant to remember that plants are the mothers of our medicines, the best example being precisely that of the meadowsweet (Spirea ulmaria) which gave its name to the aspirin which has been the most sold medicine in the world for more than a hundred years.
In 1829 a pharmacist from Vitry le François, Pierre Joseph Leroux, isolated from willow bark an active ingredient which he named "salicilin" after the Latin name of the willow (Salix).From this molecule, a remedy called salicylic acid was made, which was widely prescribed to people suffering from migraine or rheumatism.
But this remedy had side effects: a very unpleasant taste, an irritating effect on the oral, stomach and intestinal mucosa.
It was then that in a laboratory at the University of Montpellier a chemist, Charles Gerhardt, succeeded in 1853 in synthesising acetylsalicylic acid by transforming the phenol function of salicylic acid by acetylation.This discovery is the real birth certificate of aspirin, although the invention was forgotten with the premature death of Charles Gerhardt.This scientist was not taken seriously, with recognition of his work coming much later.
At the end of the 19th century, Felix Hoffmann, who worked in a German dye factory run by a certain Adolf Von Bayer, learned of Gerhardt's discovery and developed a new, simpler method of synthesising acetylsalicylic acid that could be reproduced industrially on a large scale.
And on 1 February 1899, Bayer registered the trademarkAspirin: the "a" referring to the radicalacetyl and "spirin" to the Latin name (Spirea) of the meadowsweet which then grew in quantity on the banks of the nearby Horn River, yet acetylsalicylic acid is a derivative of the active analgesic principle naturally present in meadowsweet flowers.
This tall, upright perennial herb grows in wet meadows, ditches and riverbanks.
Its flowers are white, fragrant, arranged in clusters, the corollas consisting of five petals wrapped around each other in a spiral, hence its name,spirea.
Meadowsweet concentrates:
- Salicylic acid
- Methyl salicylate
- Heliotropin
- Hyperoside
- Rutoside
- Spiraelin
- Coumarin
- Avicularoside
- Kaempferol
Attributes of Meadowsweet
- Depurative (actionDETOX)
- Diuretic
- Febrifuge
- Sudorific
- Analgesic
- Antineuralgic
- Anti-migraine
- Antirheumatic
- Anti-inflammatory
- Antispasmodic
Therapeutic uses of meadowsweet
- Edema
- Congestive states
- Biliary lithiasis
- Urinary lithiasis
- Febrile states
- Pain
- Neuralgia
- Migraine
- Rheumatic fever
A specific indication is particularly appreciated: the meadowsweet favours the elimination of toxins which overload the muscular tissue, mainly the lactic acid inducing cramps.
