Natural Herbal Beauty

Today most people believe that colds, flu and coughs are caused by bacteria and viruses. In other ages mysterious “venoms” were to blame, while the Chinese describe colds in terms of attack by external evils — wind, cold, damp, dryness, heat and fire. Whatever the cause there are always some people who will “catch anything going”, while others seem to go for years without the slightest hint of a sneeze. Perhaps John Harrison in his book Love Your Disease has a point:

The common cold is not a disease, so much as an institution. It is employed skilfully and effectively by those who don’t want to be particularly ill but want a period of incapacity. Having achieved that incapacity they can change whatever’s troubling them…in this way the common cold or any minor respiratory complaint is used to rebalance the psyche and the internal organs. (more…)

Modern medicine tends to consider “catarrh” as a uniform problem; however, for the herbalist it can be either “hot” or “cold”. Cold catarrh is copious, thin and watery; hot catarrh is thick, scanty and yellow with more inflammation of the mucous membranes. Those with a tendency for “cold” catarrh are often the cold, damp, “phlegmatic” types, with a sluggish digestion. Hot catarrh is a characteristic of more active, tense, “choleric” personalities. While cold catarrh is more characteristic of common colds, some types of sinusitis would come into the “hot” category with thick, yellow mucous that stubbornly refuses to move. (more…)