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8. Cool, bottle, cap tightly, and store in amber-colored bottles.

A similar method of solvent exchange good for modifying small quantities of alcohol extract and a little more economical using less glycerin was shown to me by Karen Aguiar, herbalist and co-owner of The Herbal Apothecary, Sonoma County, California. She suggests: “Take 120 ml (4 oz.) of tincture, place in an enameled pot, add 60 ml (2 oz.) of 50 percent glycerin (which is a mixture of 50 percent absolute glycerin, 50 percent distilled water). Simmer gently on a very low heat until all the alcohol has evaporated. The finished amount should measure about 120 ml. You may need to add more of the 50 percent glycerin to bring up to 120 ml.”

SUCCUS

A succus is simply a juice. The device I use for making an herbal succus is a Chop-Rite Health Fountain (Wheatgrass) juicer.

It’s the only device I have found that performs this job, and it does it admirably, though laboriously. A succus is an elegant extract that will deteriorate readily. Unless it is to be used immediately, it must be either mixed with absolute alcohol to protect and preserve it: 3 parts succus to 1 part alcohol, or poured into ice cube trays and frozen. These succus cubes can then be taken one by one and dropped into a glass of water, or a cup of juice, or merely put in a cup and melted as needed. This preservative method of freezing an extract into individual dosage cubes also works well with herbal infusions, decoctions, and concentrates.

Freshly picked Cleavers is the only herb I prepare annually as a succus. Dandelion root and Plantain are two herbs, however, that I have juiced a number of times, and I highly recommend that an herbalist experience them in this form. The juice of the Dandelion root provides a vitally calming liver tonic and the Plantain juice blesses one with a magical (I mean this literally) vulnerary, anti-inflammatory, anti-venom/toxin, anti-microbial, astringent agent that is extremely useful in home and travel first-aid kits. It “fixes” spider/insect bites (most notably the Brown Recluse spider bite), poisoning, toothache, earache, inflammation of the skin, and makes a soothing dressing for fresh cuts, wounds, bruises, hemorrhoids, etc.; this résumé goes on and on. Wheatgrass is another fine tonic obtained as a succus. The juices of other medicinal grasses of the Poaceae family (formerly the Gramineae family) is an herbal materia medica that has yet to be studied in any depth. From a botanical family that includes many other power plants such as Wild Oat, Couchgrass, Rice, Wheat, cane sugar, Bamboo, etc., I think we will discover a wealth of other excellent medicines.

Chop-rite Health Fountain (Wheatgrass Juicer)

THERAPEUTICS

Therapeutics is the art of applying medicinal agents and other measures for the alleviation or healing of disease. This word comes from the Greek therapeutikos, inclined to serve or to take care of. In early Greek times the term therapeutes was applied to the slave who acted as a nurse or orderly.

Empirical therapeutics is that therapy for which no scientific support can be given other than that it has been repeatedly used with success. It does not take into consideration physiological or pathological mechanisms, but is based upon observations in past experiences of the effects of plant remedies and other remedial measures. This is the accumulated knowledge of our approximately 2,000,000-year heritage of human beings experimenting on human beings (provings). This profound, rich body of truly scientific knowledge is the accumulated wisdom and knowledge of healing and of healing agents repeatedly used with success and passed down to each of us by our ancestral healers. It is the bulk of this universal human heritage and wisdom that the novice community of Western medical technology feels compelled to refer to as quackery.* In Rational therapeutics the method of action of a remedy can be “accounted for.” It is based upon the use of medicines according to their known