Book Review: Heinerman’s Encyclopedia of Healing Herbs and Spices

I have always believed in healing the body in a natural way. When I ran across this book in my 20s, I was fascinated with the depth of Heinerman’s knowledge in the uses of the living breathing plants around us to do this. I would spend hours pouring through its pages, absorbing its rich knowledge.

My first test of its power to heal came in the first year of my marriage when my husband contracted bronchitis. I used the book’s simple cold & flu recipe to drive it out of his lungs. He – and I – become strong believers from that point on.

The more I read, the more I was fascinated with how this precious, old knowledge could have been abandoned for modern medicine. The section on Slippery Elm especially caught my attention for an account of how in 1838, a Mormon woman used a mucilage poultice of this tree’s roots and inner bark to heal the hip and socket joint of her son when he was attacked by religious fanatics, one of them putting the muzzle of his gun to the boy’s hip, deliberately blasting the joint away. The son made a full recovery!

The book is cross-referenced between ailments and plants, making it very easy to look up anything you are researching. If there were a fire today, it would be the first book I would save when I ran out of the house – next to my Book of Shadows, that is.

As a side note, I oftentimes went back to this reference book when I first started writing my eBook series in 2000. As I rewrite this section, I will again rely heavily on its wisdom, instilling it into my Healer, Serena Solare.

)O( Luna