The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Herbal Medicine for Preppers: Medicinal Trees, Alder

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey y'all, welcome to this week's show. I'm a little late this week, sorry about that. Basically it was my mom's birthday yesterday and I went down east to get her some oysters. You know it takes quite a while to... If y'all live near the coast, I grew up about half time in the mountains, half time on the coast. My grandfather built a beach house down in Brunswick County. And I mean, from the earliest age, I can remember he was taking me down there, picking oysters out of the bed, shucking them with his pocket knife and teaching me to eat them raw. So, you know, I'm an oyster fanatic.

Starting point is 00:00:35 It's probably actually my favorite food. But anyway, I got our bushel oysters and it takes quite a while, especially if you're a little out of practice to um wash and scrub and shuck a bushel of oysters so um you know i'm looking at two o'clock i'm thinking yeah i'll probably get this done in an hour or so you know six o'clock rolls around i'm still in there shucking oysters and uh roasting them and everything here's a good good tip, something I learned many, many years ago. You know, oysters in their raw state don't keep very long. And they, you know, if you get, if you go to a fancy grocery store, your oysters are all going to be scrubbed up and clean and

Starting point is 00:01:20 pristine. And they're really going to spoil actually very quickly. If you leave the mud on them, especially if you get oysters in clusters, which is my preference, leave the mud on them, they'll actually last about two weeks in the refrigerator. But they do start to smell a little funky after say four or five days. My preference is actually to clean the oysters real well because I want to save all the oyster liquor. I don't want to waste any of it and I don't want any mud, you know, low tide muck in there. So it's pretty nasty stuff. So what I'll actually do is, you know, wash them and scrub them and then roast them in

Starting point is 00:02:00 a, I use just the bottom half of a broiler pan, you know, just a cheap roasting pan because they're going to stain the pan with the salt water and everything and scratch it up with the shells. I roast them about 400 degrees for about 15 minutes. That's just until they open. They're still, they're just, they're like par cooked. That's actually the way I prefer them. I like raw oysters. I like my oysters just barely cooked if I'm going to have them cooked. But save all the juice. Shuck them, you know, scrape those oysters into a bowl, pour all the oyster liquor over them, pop them in the fridge, and then they'll keep really as long as, I've never had any go bad. You know, I probably haven't

Starting point is 00:02:39 kept them probably three weeks in the fridge at the most. I mean, when I really had like several bushels of oysters I was dealing with, you're going to get about a gallon of oysters along with the oyster liquor out of a bushel oysters on average. And, you know, it's a lot and oysters are, you know, protein rich and you can really fill up on them fast. But in that state, you can eat them, they really rehydrate in the juice. So they're like raw, but they're like par-cooked. So if you enjoy raw oysters, you'll probably like them like this.

Starting point is 00:03:12 If you enjoy roasted oysters, you'll probably like them like this. If you enjoy your oysters more roasted, roast them longer. This is just the way I like them and the best way, I think, to store them. But you can take them in that state and just bread them and fry them up and they're just like fried oysters they're better much better than canned oysters um you can once they've been par uh well i call par roasted i guess and they're stored in their liqueur you can uh freeze them and they're far better than any kind of frozen oysters you're going to get at the store. I don't know why. You know, I guess it's just easier for the big producers to do it the way they do it.

Starting point is 00:03:57 You know, machine shucked or assembly line shucked and then, you know, parboiled. This works better because, you know, it's just like cooking meat on the bone. The shells have flavor. And it's really, really good. So anyway, that's a long way of getting around to say it. I'm like cooking meat on the bone. The shells have flavor, and it's really, really good. So anyway, that's a long way of getting around to saying I'm a day late on my podcast. But actually, I think I'm going to start doing my podcast Thursday instead of Wednesday. It just works better for my schedule. You know, I hope James is okay with that. If not, he can tell me otherwise, and I'll go back to Wednesday.

Starting point is 00:04:21 But I am going to stick with Thursday from now on, if I can, unless there's a scheduling conflict. And then I will try to do a Wednesday show. But, you know, I do my own podcast Monday through Wednesday. And then this is, you know, the podcast I do for the Prepper Broadcasting Network. So it's actually different. It's not the Southern Appalachian Herb podcast or the Uncensored Catholic podcast, which is what I do for myself. And, you know, just when I have to do two podcasts in a day,

Starting point is 00:04:53 the time spent recording them may not be that long. The time spent editing can be, and oftentimes I just don't get my writing done that day. So I think I'm just going to shift it to Thursday and just make things easier for me. But let's get into this week's tree medicinal trees remember this comes from my book the medicinal trees of the American Southeast and Herbalist Guide and it's one that's not as common in my area though we do have it there's one in my backyard. In fact, the mountain alder. But the all in a species or alder, that's A-L-D-E-R, has a great deal of historic documented medicinal use. It's one of your more common trees in Europe. So a lot of use in Europe.

Starting point is 00:05:49 in Europe so a lot of use in in Europe so actually there's 16 varieties that have documented use in herbal medicine and some of them are Asian as well there's some Japanese varieties but let's see Italian alder, Aulnus glutinosa, Aulnus hirsute, Auln honest incontinence gray alder i'll just go with that japanese alder or honest japonica um honest maritima that would be a seaside alder obviously maritima is maritime or seaside honest oh boy uh maximo wixi I'm thinking it was a Polish guy who discovered that one. Maximo Wixie. white alder alder we'll just go with that red alder uh speckled alder um smooth alder uh sitka alder mountain alder and american green alder and actually we do have both the mountain alder and american green alder in uh the mountains uh but actually i think it's a little confusing because i think what we call mountain alder is actually green alder and we have another one that's called tag alder, alnacerolata.

Starting point is 00:07:08 So anyway, they pretty much use interchangeably though. I'm not too worried about, you know, an alder is kind of an alder. So the most common use of alder is the bark and it's a source of salicylic acid, just like willow is. It's the base from which aspirin was created. People used willow bark, alder, meadowsweet, birch, that's all that comes to mind right now, but for centuries, probably thousands of years before the Bayer company ever figured out how to synthesize salicin into salicylic acid and make aspirin. That's probably not exactly the way it works chemically, but, you know, aspirin became a popular over-the-counter pain and anti-inflammatory medication once the Bayer company began making the synthetic version.

Starting point is 00:08:02 But it's been known, you know know for as long as people have been around it's uh anodyne febrifusion analgesic analgesic that of course means it uh reduces pain it reduces inflammation and it can reduce fever it's also emetic meaning if you have too much it'll make you throw up it's ast astringent, meaning it tightens tissue. Hemostatic, stomatic, and tonic. That's all of them as opposed to salicylic acid. Salicylic acid, as you may know through aspirin, can irritate the stomach. This one actually has sort of a tonic, tonifying, good for digestion, in other words, good for the stomach, and good for the liver, and good for the blood. It's blood thinner. I don't think I left anything out.

Starting point is 00:08:51 All right, so St. Hildegard von Bingen said, If someone is a bit ulcerous on his skin, place new fresh leaves of this tree on the ulcers. During that time, it will become smoother. fresh leaves of this tree on the ulcers. During that time, it will become smoother. Now, St. Hildegard von Bingen, probably the greatest herbalist of all time, was writing around 1100 AD. They had no idea of the chemical properties of salicin, but she knew that if someone had a sore, a swelling, a red place on their skin, you could take the leaves of alder and sort of make a poultice with it and put it on there, and it would reduce the inflammation and irritation, exactly what we know to be the properties of salicin. Gerard, the herbalist from 1500s

Starting point is 00:09:40 England, said the leaves of alder are much used against hot swellings, ulcers, and all inward inflammations, especially the almonds or kernels of the throat, that swollen glands, you know, just under the jaw. The bark is much used in poor country, the bark is much used of poor country dyers for the dyeing of cloth, caps, hose, and such like into a black color whereunto it serveth very well. Well, that's 1500s Elizabethan way of saying the bark's a really good dye. It was used a lot in early America and by Native Americans as a natural dye. as a natural dye. Miss Greve writing in 1930s England, it says of its medicinal actions and uses, it is tonic and astringent. A decoction of the bark is useful to bathe swellings and

Starting point is 00:10:36 inflammations, especially the throat, and has been known to cure ague. Ague was fevers, specifically malarial fevers. So it was, again, the salicin properties of the plant were used to reduce fevers. Peasants in the Alps are reported to be frequently cured of rheumatism by being covered with bags full of the heated leaves. Now, that's an interesting use. I've never tried it. I'm sure it would be very good for arthritis. So we're talking severe arthritis, rheumatism. Rheumatism can also be stiff muscles. It doesn't just have to be aching joints, but inflammation. And they're using bags full of the heated leaves of alder.

Starting point is 00:11:22 Horses, cows, sheeps, and goat are said to eat it, but swine refuse it. Some state that it is bad for horses as it turns their tongues black. Probably not bad for them at all. In fact, you know, the walnut, we'll get into walnut another time, black walnut especially, has some pretty strong vermmafuge properties. I mean, it helps get rid of intestinal worms. And the horses on my grandparents' farm every spring would eat the leaves off the black walnut trees. And the old folks said that they knew what they were doing. It would help keep them free of worms.

Starting point is 00:12:00 So it would also, if I remember correctly, turn their tongues dark. But I could be just conflating the two in my head because I have not, I haven't been on my grandparents' farm for a very, very long time now. Very, very long time. More than 20 years and probably 30 since we had the horses. So you know how that goes. So you know how that goes. An Irish herbal states, the bark or rind of it, because of its astringent quality, is useful against swellings of the throat.

Starting point is 00:12:33 It heals and cauterizes sores and ulcers, and the leaves of it are made use of against ulcers and all kinds of inflammations. Brother Aloysius wrote of Alder. He was, I think he was Swiss. Swiss or German, I can't remember. He was Father Nape's protege. He said, Alder bark is very rich in tannins, which makes it very stringent and febrifuge. The dose is one-fourth cup of powder and a glass of white wine taken in the morning on an empty stomach. While the patient is in bed, as this remedy causes excessive sweating,

Starting point is 00:13:07 that's very good to know. Excessive sweating can also be a good thing. It can help break a fever. It can help flush the system. It's good to help with a lot of issues, actually. Decoction of alder is an excellent remedy for inflammation of the throat and tonsils. One should gargle four to six times a day with it. The fruit or alder buds should be picked in October and bottled in gin. One

Starting point is 00:13:31 tablespoon taken twice a day is a recommended remedy against epilepsy. No idea. I don't know how or why or if that works, but that's part of German folk medicine. You know, probably worth a try. The bluish-colored buds picked in the spring, dried and taken in the form of tea, are highly recommended for rheumatism. The fresh leaves pounded and applied to ulcers that soars, basically, take

Starting point is 00:13:56 away the burning and cause them to separate and heal, to close up and heal. The altar was much used by Native Americans too. Herbal Remedies of the Lumbee Indian States A handful of the bark was peeled from the tree that was knotty and gnarled and boiled down by the Lumbee healers to make a strong tea of a deep red color

Starting point is 00:14:17 to reduce swellings and sprains, coughs and skin eruptions. Aunt Cat Lowry, a Luming midwife and herbal expert, would recommend a tea made from red tag elder to nurse the pains of the mother related to the birthing process. Many healers thought an ingredient in this tea cleared milky urine. For drooping eyes, some healers would rub and blow the decoction of the bark into the eyes or suggest a bark tea for general pain or heart trouble. Of course, salicin, you know, thins the blood. Helps can prevent a heart attack sometimes. It helps with heart attack recovery. A hot berry tea was often prescribed to treat fever. Drinking a cold tea from bark shavings was suggested by one healer to help the

Starting point is 00:15:03 kidneys act. Lumbee mothers would often give tea to babies for thrash, which is thrush, a mouth soreness. Sugar was added to the tea by many Lumbee mothers and given to babies for hives or teething. Again, the anti-inflammatory properties of aspirin. And it helps with pain, too. Analgesic properties. A cold bark tea was prescribed by Lumbee healers to purify the blood and to bring down high blood pressure. That's an interesting use.

Starting point is 00:15:32 Resources of the Southern Fields and Forests, written in the 1860s, says the bark is astringent. At this time, it was being used in official medicine in the United States. They're actually quoting from the Journal of American Medicine, or actually I think it was the New York Journal of Medicine. It had for a long time been neglected, but in the article referred, the decoction is spoken highly of as an alternative and astringent in scrofula and cutaneous diseases. It is said to have been very successful in hematuria, and these affections producing beneficial results where all other means had failed. Sheck, in his Flora of the Carolinas, spoke of the altar tags as being of great service

Starting point is 00:16:20 on account of their alternative powers. service on account of their alternative powers. That's, again, sort of like tonic, by the way. It gradually brings you up to health, was what that word actually means. A decoction of the leaves has also been used to suppress hemorrhage. They have been found effectual in relieving dyspepsia, that's upset stomach, basically, burping and gas and all that, and bowel complaints. burping and gas and all that, and bowel complaints. An astringent decoction may be made of the bark, leaves, or tags acting also as a diuretic. A tincture may also be used. Poultices made of them were used as a local application to tumors, sprains, swellings, etc. The leaves are applied

Starting point is 00:16:59 externally to wounds and ulcers. The inner bark of the root is emetic. The inner bark of the root apparently is the one that will make you throw up and has been given in intermittence. Intermittence is like ague. Again, it's going back to malarial fevers, intermittent fevers. King's American Dispensatory of 1898 says, To the taste, tag alder is bitter and astringent. It powerfully increases retrograde metamorphosis and exerts a direct tonic action on the mucous surfaces, aiding digestion and assimilation.

Starting point is 00:17:35 In other words, good for your stomach, good for your appetite, and helps you digest your food. It is a true catalytic and a positive antiputrefactive agent. It means it's going to help keep wounds from getting infected. Locally applied, the decoction stains the skin. The drug stimulates the gastric mucous membranes and causes an increased flow of gastric juices. Applied to the mammae, that's the breast, the laser said to decrease the lacteal secretion. It helps dry out milk. It is alternative, emetic, and astringent. So they go on to say that it was a much neglected but very important remedy.

Starting point is 00:18:17 And scrofula, which I believe is like glandular inflammation, if I remember correctly, probably have a different name for it these days, but also good for eczema. Pustular eruptions or pussing sores, essentially, boils and such. Administered internally, applied locally. We may expect from illness the best results used in impetigo, perigo, herpes, the best results used in impetigo, perigo, herpes, scorbutus, all of these are diseases in which illness would be of great utility. Good for tenor of the scalp in children. We're talking psoriasis, essentially psoriatic dandruff, itchy scalps and such. Good in passive hemorrhages, especially in hematuria,

Starting point is 00:19:07 for which a concussion of the cones has also been used. And they go on and on. It's, yeah, rather hard to read, but very informative. But I think you're starting to get the idea. I'll give you their specific indications and uses, and we'll catch up to modern times. The specific use of this remedy is to improve nutrition and increase waste. It is particular value in scrofula with feeble vitality and chronic skin diseases exhibiting a scaly or

Starting point is 00:19:38 pustular eruption. Plants for future, modern use, medicinal uses of alder. The bark is alternative astringent cathartic febrifusion tonic. The fresh bark will cause vomiting so use dried bark for all but emetic purposes. And that's what cathartic means. Means that's another word for saying it'll make you throw up. A decoction of the dried bark is used to base the swellings and inflammations especially the mouth and throat. The powdered bark and leaves have been used as an internal syringic tonic whilst the bark has been used as an internal and external hemostatic against hemorrhage the dried bark of the young trees the dried bark of young twigs are used or the inner bark or drink of branches two to three

Starting point is 00:20:23 years old. Dried folate are used. Harvested in the spring. Dried folate are used. Most barks are harvested in the spring, by the way. They just come off a lot easier when the sap is rising. Boiling the inner bark in vinegar produces a useful wash to treat lice and a range of skin problems such as scabies and scabs. The liquid can be used as a tooth wash. The leaves are astringent, galactagogue, and vermifuge. So the leaves will actually increase mother's milk. They are used to help

Starting point is 00:20:51 reduce breast enlargements in nursing mothers. A decoction of the leaves is used in folk remedies for treating cancer of the breast. I was taught to say duodium, esophagus face, pylorus, pancreas, rectum, throat, tongue, and uterus. The leaves are harvested in the summer and used fresh. Rodale Herb Book says that the bark is especially good to induce a gargle for sore throats a decoction of the bark to induce circulation check diarrhea and its eye drops leaves are glutinous and used to cure inflammation fresh leaves applied to bare feet are said to be excellent for burning and itching feet very interesting and uses a foot bath when brewed into a strong tea botany in a day says that the bark is most potent part. Live inner bark from local our local alders quickly turns into a flaming

Starting point is 00:21:51 orange brown color when exposed to air. The color is from tannic acid. It is a brilliant and permanent dye. Some Native Americans even dyed their hair with it. Other species of alder may produce darker colors, ours do around here, more like black. He's out, Thomas Elpo, I think is in the Rockies. Medicinally, the alder can be used as a potent astringent for wounds, diarrhea, and so forth. Some species produce anti-tumor properties similar to birches. Very interesting. And finally, the physician's's Desk Reference for Herbal Medicine, the big book the doctors would use, says of black alder specifically, the decoction is a tonic and has astringent and hemostatic properties, which may be due to the tannins, flavone, glycosides, and triterpenes. flavone glycosides, and triterpins.

Starting point is 00:22:49 Under unproven uses, it says black alder is used as a coction for gargles in the treatment of streptococcal sore throat, strep throat in other words, and pharyngitis and for internal bleeding. The bark is considered to be effective for intermittent fever. No health hazards or side effects are known in conjunction with the proper administration of designated therapeutic dosages. No health hazards or side effects are known in conjunction with the proper administration of designated therapeutic dosages. So that's your official statement on alder and I think folk use to tell us that this is a very important tree, a very useful tree, definitely one of those first aid go-to's

Starting point is 00:23:23 in your natural medicine cabinet so start identifying the trees in your yard in your neighborhood in the local park and if things get bad you know here you got one's going to help with bleeding fevers diarrhea i mean sores so many different things i mean it's one of those trees that could come in very very uh, be very, very valuable. Come in very handy, I guess is what I was trying to say. Anyway, y'all, have a good week, and I'll talk with you most likely next Thursday. The information in this podcast is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease or condition. Nothing I say or write has been evaluated or approved by the FDA.

Starting point is 00:24:10 I'm not a doctor. The U.S. government does not recognize the practice of herbal medicine, and there is no governing body regulating herbalists. Therefore, I'm really just a guy who studies herbs. I'm not offering any advice. I won't even claim that anything I write or say is accurate or true. I can tell you what herbs have been traditionally used for. I can tell you my own experience and if I believe in herbs help me. I cannot nor would I tell you to do the same. If you use an herb anyone recommends, you are treating yourself. You take full responsibility for your health. Humans are individuals and no two are identical. What works for me may not work for you. You may have an allergy, a sensitivity, an underlying condition that no one else even shares and you don't even know about. Be careful with your health. By continuing to listen to my

Starting point is 00:24:51 podcast or read my blog, you agree to be responsible for yourself, do your own research, make your own choices, and not to blame me for anything ever.

The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Herbal Medicine for Preppers: Medicinal Trees, Alder

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