The Herbal Medicine-Maker's Handbook_ A Home Manual - James Green [47]
SOLVENT ACTIONS OF MENSTRUA
WATER
Water, the global menstruum that is forever dissolving the surface of our planet, has likewise, from time immemorial, been used by human beings as a solvent to enhance their lives. Water is called the universal solvent, for it has a more extensive range as a solvent than any other known liquid. It is also the cheapest and most abundant solvent available, and is therefore used in the extraction of plant essences whenever the advantage of using it outweighs any disadvantages.
Cold water is a good solvent for plant constituents, such as sugars, proteins, albuminous bodies, gums, mucilaginous substances, pectin, tannins or plant astringents, plant acids, coloring matter, many mineral salts, many glycosides, some alkaloids, most all alkaloidal salts, and, to a slight degree, a hint of essential oils.
Hot or boiling water causes plant tissues to swell and in so doing bursts the cells. This hot water then dissolves starches and disintegrates and extracts other vegetable tissues hardly affected by cold water. Heating a water menstruum permits the more rapid solution of a plant’s soluble matter, but a frequently encountered disadvantage inherent with this phenomenon is that the heating process extracts substances which later separate out from the solution upon cooling. These precipitated substances can manifest as sinister-looking scum or foreboding foams and other frightening apparitions that float on the top of a solution or settle in strange ways at the bottom of the container. Although aesthetically disturbing to some, these precipitates are harmless unless you plan to store the liquid for a while, in which case they provide food for microorganisms. If you intend to use this tea to make a syrup, or are keeping it to use later for whatever reason, strain it as soon as it cools.
Plant tissues are made up of associations of complex bodies. As the extraction of these plant constituents with water is initiated, the sugars, gums, plant acids, mineral salts, and coloring matter, which are the most readily soluble constituents, dissolve first. The solution of these different substances in water produces a different menstruum which is now capable of dissolving constituents that were previously insoluble in pure water. As this phenomenon progresses, the ongoing compositions act as new extracting mediums one after another, with water no longer being the sole menstruum.
All this action instigated by bringing pure water to a boil evolves liquids of differing solvent capabilities than that of simple cold water, and in this way it is found that water solutions of plant constituents may produce important menstrua that are uniquely different from water alone. This is quite important to understand, because it gives the ultimate solvency power of simple water and the classic preparations that employ only water as a menstruum (teas) the regard they merit. As a result of these idiosyncrasies of a water menstruum, water may ultimately be made to dissolve water-insoluble substances that from their characters, at first assumption, would appear not to be soluble at all in a simple water menstruum. One finds that water may become a solvent for particles of such constituents as resins, oils, glucosides, and other plant constituents that, in a purified condition (isolated from the fully intact organic chemistry of the plant), are insoluble or nearly so in pure water. With this insight, water infusions and decoctions can be recognized (reinstated in home pharmacy) and relied upon as equally powerful or in many instances more powerful extraction processes as those processes that include alcohol and other solvents in the menstruum.
I’ve always felt that the humble cup of herb tea is a more overall potent and effective delivery system of herbal medicine than the most superlative power-products released by all our commercial herb