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News on Health & Science

San Francisco Circumcision Ban Struck From Ballot

A San Francisco judge has struck a proposed male circumcision ban from a November ballot, ruling that the city cannot regulate medical procedure and citing religious freedom protections

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The ruling was applauded by opponents of the proposed ban, who attacked it as anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim.

In May, advocates of a ban gathered enough voter signatures to put the measure on the city’s ballot.

They described the sacred rite for Jews and Muslims as “genital mutilation”.

The measure, which qualified in May for a spot on the ballot, would have made circumcision of a minor boy punishable by up to a year in jail and a $1,000 (£612) fine.

The US federal government already bans female circumcision.

Jewish and Muslim groups said the proposal was an assault on their ancient religious practice and likened the proposal to circumcision bans in the Soviet Union.

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Source :BBC NEWS : 28 July 2011

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Herbs & Plants

Berchemia Lineata

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Botanical Name : Berchemia lineata
Family : Rhamnaceae
Genus: Berchemia

Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Rosales
Species: B. lineata
Synonyms : Berchemia axilliflora – Cheng.,Berchemia edgeworthii – Lawson.,Berchemia nana – W.W.Smith.,Rhamnus lineatus – L.
Habitat:Range E. Asia – C. and N. China to the Himalayas.It occurs naturally in dry thickets in the rainshadows of the central Asian mountains. B. lineata is found from northern China to Nepal, but is also cultivated in gardens. On rocks and in forests, 2000 – 2700 metres in the Himalayas. Scrub thickets in dry places at elevations of 2400 – 4000 metres in Nepal.Hills, open places, roadsides; low elevations. Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Taiwan [India, Japan, Vietnam].

Description:
A decidious Climber growing to 4m tall. Shrubs, prostrate or procumbent. Branchlets yellow-green, densely pubescent; older branches glabrescent. Stipules remarkable, reddish, lanceolate, 3-5 mm, persistent; petiole 1-3 mm, pubescent; leaf blade abaxially greenish and with minute dark pits, adaxially dark green, broadly elliptic or oblong-ovate, 5-20 × 4-12 mm, papery, both surfaces glabrous, lateral veins 4-6 pairs, base rounded, apex rounded or obtuse, with a mucro 1-2 mm, often slightly emarginate. Flowers white, very small, 4-5 mm in diam., in terminal cymose racemes or in fascicles of few to 10 in leaf axils. Pedicel 2.5-4 mm, glabrous. Calyx tube campanulate; lobes triangular-lanceolate, ca. 1.5 mm. Petals lanceolate, ca. 2.5 mm. Stamens slightly longer than petals, with very thin, flat filaments. Drupe yellowish green when young, dark blue and waxy at maturity, globose to ovoid to ellipsoid, 5-6 mm, to 3 mm in diam., with persistent disk and calyx tube at base; fruiting pedicel 4.5-5 mm, pilose. Fl. Jul-Oct, fr. Nov.
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The roots and leaves are used medicinally for relieving coughs and reducing sputum and for treating injuries, trauma, and snakebites.

It is hardy to zone 8. It is in flower from July to August, and the seeds ripen in November. The flowers are hermaphrodite (have both male and female organs)
The plant prefers light (sandy) and medium (loamy) soils and requires well-drained soil. The plant prefers acid, neutral and basic (alkaline) soils. It can grow in semi-shade (light woodland) or no shade. It requires moist soil.

Cultivation
Requires a good moist well-drained loam, succeeding in full sun if the soil does not dry out otherwise it is best in light shade. This species is not hardy in the colder areas of the country, it tolerates temperatures down to between -5 and -10°c. Suitable for growing along fences, against walls with wire supports or for growing through other shrubs. Plants climb by means of twining around supports. Closely related to B. edgeworthii.

Propagation

Seed – sow spring or autumn in a cold frame. When they are large enough to handle, prick the seedlings out into individual pots and grow them on in the greenhouse for at least their first winter. Plant them out into their permanent positions in late spring or early summer, after the last expected frosts. Cuttings of half-ripe wood, July/August in a frame. Cuttings of mature wood of the current season’s growth, November to January in a frame. Root cuttings in winter[200]. Layering of young stems in winter

Edible Uses
Edible Parts: Fruit.

Fruit. – raw or cooked. Only eat the fruit when it is black ripe. The fruit is not very freely produced in Britain[1]. The fruit is about 8mm in diameter.

Medicinal Actions & Uses:-
Antitussive; Febrifuge.

The plant has been used as a febrifuge. The roots and leaves have been used as a medicine to relieve coughs and reduce sputum, to treat injuries, trauma and snakebite.

Disclaimer:The information presented herein is intended for educational purposes only. Individual results may vary, and before using any supplements, it is always advisable to consult with your own health care provider

Resources:
http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Berchemia+lineata
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berchemia_lineata
http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=620&taxon_id=200013327

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Healthy Tips

Talk Deeply & Be Happy

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Would you be happier if you spent more time discussing the state of the world and the meaning of life — and less time talking about the weather?

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Deep conversations made people happier than small talk, one study found.
It may sound counterintuitive, but people who spend more of their day having deep discussions and less time engaging in small talk seem to be happier, said Matthias Mehl, a psychologist at the University of Arizona who published a study on the subject.

“We found this so interesting, because it could have gone the other way — it could have been, ‘Don’t worry, be happy’ — as long as you surf on the shallow level of life you’re happy, and if you go into the existential depths you’ll be unhappy,” Dr. Mehl said.

But, he proposed, substantive conversation seemed to hold the key to happiness for two main reasons: both because human beings are driven to find and create meaning in their lives, and because we are social animals who want and need to connect with other people.

“By engaging in meaningful conversations, we manage to impose meaning on an otherwise pretty chaotic world,” Dr. Mehl said. “And interpersonally, as you find this meaning, you bond with your interactive partner, and we know that interpersonal connection and integration is a core fundamental foundation of happiness.”

Dr. Mehl’s study was small and doesn’t prove a cause-and-effect relationship between the kind of conversations one has and one’s happiness. But that’s the planned next step, when he will ask people to increase the number of substantive conversations they have each day and cut back on small talk, and vice versa.

The study, published in the journal Psychological Science, involved 79 college students — 32 men and 47 women — who agreed to wear an electronically activated recorder with a microphone on their lapel that recorded 30-second snippets of conversation every 12.5 minutes for four days, creating what Dr. Mehl called “an acoustic diary of their day.”

Researchers then went through the tapes and classified the conversation snippets as either small talk about the weather or having watched a TV show, and more substantive talk about current affairs, philosophy, the difference between Baptists and Catholics or the role of education. A conversation about a TV show wasn’t always considered small talk; it could be categorized as substantive if the speakers analyzed the characters and their motivations, for example.

Many conversations were more practical and did not fit in either category, including questions about homework or who was taking out the trash, for example, Dr. Mehl said. Over all, about a third of all conversation was ranked as substantive, and about a fifth consisted of small talk.

But the happiest person in the study, based on self-reports about satisfaction with life and other happiness measures as well as reports from people who knew the subject, had twice as many substantive conversations, and only one-third of the amount of small talk as the unhappiest, Dr. Mehl said. Almost every other conversation the happiest person had — 45.9 percent of the day’s conversations — were substantive, while only 21.8 percent of the unhappiest person’s conversations were substantive.

Small talk made up only 10 percent of the happiest person’s conversations, while it made up almost three times as much –- or 28.3 percent –- of the unhappiest person’s conversations.

Next, Dr. Mehl wants to see if people can actually make themselves happier by having more substantive conversations.

“It’s not that easy, like taking a pill once a day,” Dr. Mehl said. “But this has always intrigued me. Can we make people happier, by asking them, for the next five days, to have one extra substantive conversation every day?”

Source: The New York Times. (Health, March 17,2010)

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News on Health & Science

Mom’s Hips Gives Breast Cancer Clues

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You can’t avoid breast cancer. But, you can find out if you’re at risk for the disease  it’s simple, just check out your mother’s measurements.

According to a study by scientists in Britain, women whose mothers have wide and round hips could be seven times more likely to develop breast cancer, the Daily Mail reported here in Tuesday.

“A woman’s hip size is a marker of her oestrogen production. Wide, round hips represent markers of high sex hormone concentrations in the mother, which increase her daughter’s vulnerability to breast cancer,” lead researcher professor David Barker of Southampton University said.

In fact, the researchers came to the conclusion after studying the health of over 6,000 Finnish women born from 1934 to 1944 and comparing it with information on their mothers‘ hip size. The measurement used was the intercristal diameter   the distance from hip bone to hip bone. According to the findings, a woman’s risk of breast cancer went up by 60% if her mother’s hips were more than 30 cm across.

The risk increased with hip size and with the length of time the baby was in the womb. Moreover, the researchers found that babies carried by wider-hipped women for the full 40 weeks of gestation or longer were 3.7 times more likely to develop breast cancer. And, adding the existence of elder siblings into the equation took the risk to more than seven-fold.

Source: The Telegraph(Kolkata, India)

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Herbs & Plants

Wormwood

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The name of this plant derives from its bitterness, from absinthia, the Roman word for “bitter”. This property is used for providing bitter taste to some well known beverages and liquors. Wormwood has a marked tonic effect on the stomach, the gallbladder and in adjusting weak digestive problems. It is used to expel roundworms and threadworms. By improving the functions of the digestive system it helps in many conditions, including anaemia. It is also a muscle relaxer occasionally used to treat rheumatism. The leaves of wormwood have antiseptic properties which may derive from the azulenes that the plant contains.

MAIN PROPERTIES:
Bitter, carminative, muscle relaxer, antiseptic.

Wormwood has various varieties…..three most popular are described below: 1.Wormwood common, 2. Wormwood Roman 3. Wormwood Sea

1.WORMWOOD COMMON
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Botanical Name : Artemisia absinthium (LINN.)
Family: N.O. Compositae
Synonym: Green Ginger.

Common Name :Afsanteen
Parts Used: The whole herb – leaves and tops – gathered in July and August, when the plant is in flower and dried.
Habitat: Europe, Siberia, and United States of America.
The Common Wormwood held a high reputation in medicine among the Ancients. Tusser (1577), in July’s Husbandry, says:
‘While Wormwood hath seed get a handful or twaine
To save against March, to make flea to refraine:
Where chamber is sweeped and Wormwood is strowne,
What saver is better (if physick be true)
For places infected than Wormwood and Rue?
It is a comfort for hart and the braine
And therefore to have it it is not in vaine.’
Besides being strewn in chambers as Tusser recommended, it used to be laid amongstuffs and furs to keep away moths and insects.
According to the Ancients, Wormwood counteracted the effects of poisoning by hemlock, toadstools and the biting of the seadragon. The plant was of some importance among the Mexicans, who celebrated their great festival of the Goddess of Salt by a ceremonial dance of women, who wore on their heads garlands of Wormwood.

With the exception of Rue, Wormwood is the bitterest herb known, but it is very wholesome and used to be in much request by brewers for use instead of hops. The leaves resist putrefaction, and have been on that account a principal ingredient in antiseptic fomentations.

An Old Love Charm
‘On St. Luke‘s Day, take marigold flowers, a sprig of marjoram, thyme, and a little Wormwood; dry them before a fire, rub them to powder; then sift it through a fine piece of lawn, and simmer it over a slow fire, adding a small quantity of virgin honey, and vinegar. Anoint yourself with this when you go to bed, saying the following lines three times, and you will dream of your partner “that is to be”:
“St. Luke, St. Luke, be kind to me,
In dreams let me my true-love see.” ‘
Culpepper, writing of the three Wormwoods most in use, the Common Wormwood, Sea Wormwood and Roman Wormwood, tells us: ‘Each kind has its particular virtues’ . . . the Common Wormwood is ‘the strongest,’ the Sea Wormwood, ‘the second in bitterness,’ whereas the Roman Wormwood, ‘to be found in botanic gardens’ – the first two being wild – ‘joins a great deal of aromatic flavour with but little bitterness.’
The Common Wormwood grows on roadsides and waste places, and is found over the greater part of Europe and Siberia, having been formerly much cultivated for its qualities. In Britain, it appears to be truly indigenous near the sea and locally in many other parts of England and Scotland, from Forfar southwards. In Ireland it is a doubtful native. It has become naturalized in the United States.

 

Description:
It is a herbaceous perennial plant, with a hard, woody rhizome. The stems are straight, growing to 0.8-1.2 m (rarely 1.5 m) tall, grooved, branched, and silvery-green. The leaves are spirally arranged, greenish-grey above and white below, covered with silky silvery-white hairs, and bearing minute oil-producing glands; the basal leaves are up to 25 cm long, bipinnate to tripinnate with long petioles, with the cauline leaves (those on the stem) smaller, 5-10 cm long, less divided, and with short petioles; the uppermost leaves can be both simple and sessile (without a petiole). Its flowers are pale yellow, tubular, and clustered in spherical bent-down heads (capitula), which are in turn clustered in leafy and branched panicles. Flowering is from early summer to early autumn; pollination is anemophilous. The fruit is a small achene; seed dispersal is by gravity.

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It grows naturally on uncultivated, arid ground, on rocky slopes, and at the edge of footpaths and fields.

The root is perennial, and from it arise branched, firm, leafy stems, sometimes almost woody at the base. The flowering stem is 2 to 2 1/2 feet high and whitish, being closely covered with fine silky hairs. The leaves, which are also whitish on both sides from the same reason, are about 3 inches long by 1 1/2 broad, cut into deeply and repeatedly (about three times pinnatifid), the segments being narrow (linear) and blunt. The leaf-stalks are slightly winged at the margin. The small, nearly globular flowerheads are arranged in an erect, leafy panicle, the leaves on the flower-stalks being reduced to three, or even one linear segment, and the little flowers themselves being pendulous and of a greenish-yellow tint. They bloom from July to October. The ripe fruits are not crowned by a tuft of hairs, or pappus, as in the majority of the Compositae family.

The leaves and flowers are very bitter, with a characteristic odour, resembling that of thujone. The root has a warm and aromatic taste.

Cultivation: Wormwood likes a shady situation, and is easily propagated by division of roots in the autumn, by cuttings, or by seeds sown in the autumn soon after they are ripe. No further care is needed than to keep free from weeds. Plant about 2 feet apart each way.
Collect only on a dry day, after the sun has dried off the dew. Cut off the upper green portion and reject the lower parts of the stems, together with any discoloured or insect-eaten leaves. Tie loosely in bunches of uniform size and length, about six stalks to a bunch, and spread out in shape of a fan, so that the air can get to all parts. Hang over strings, in the open, on a fine, sunny, warm day, but in half-shade, otherwise the leaves will become tindery; the drying must not be done in full sunlight, or the aromatic properties will be partly lost. Aromatic herbs should be dried at a temperature of about 70 degrees. If no sun is available, the bunches may be hung over strings in a covered shed, or disused greenhouse, or in a sunny warm attic, provided there is ample ventilation, so that the moist heated air may escape. The room may also be heated with a coke or anthracite stove, care being taken that the window is kept open during the day. If after some days the leaves are crisp and the stalks still damp, hang the bunches over a stove, when the stalks will quickly finish drying. Uniformity in size in the bunches is important, as it facilitates packing. When the drying process is completed, pack away at once in airtight boxes, as otherwise the herbs will absorb about 12 per cent moisture from the air. If sold to the wholesale druggists in powdered form, rub through a sieve as soon as thoroughly dry, before the bunches have had time to absorb any moisture, and pack in tins or bottles at once.

Constituents-
: The chief constituent is a volatile oil, of which the herb yields in distillation from 0.5 to 1.0 per cent. It is usually dark green, or sometimes blue in colour, and has a strong odour and bitter, acrid taste. The oil contains thujone (absinthol or tenacetone), thujyl alcohol (both free and combined with acetic, isovalerianic, succine and malic acids), cadinene, phellandrene and pinene. The herb also contains the bitter glucoside absinthin, absinthic acid, together with tannin, resin, starch, nitrate of potash and other salts.

Therapeutic uses:
The leaves and flowering tops are gathered when the plant is in full bloom, and dried naturally or with artificial heat. Its active substances include silica, two bitter elements (absinthine and anabsinthine), thujone, tannic and resinous substances, malic acid, and succinic acid. Its use has been claimed to remedy indigestion and gastric pain, it acts as an antiseptic, and as a febrifuge. For medicinal use, the herb is used to make a tea for helping pregnant women during pain of labor. A wine can also be made by macerating the herb. It is also available in powder form and as a tincture. The oil of the plant can be used as a cardiac stimulant to improve blood circulation. Pure wormwood oil is very poisonous, but with proper dosage poses little or no danger. Wormwood is mostly a stomach medicine.

Medicinal Action and Uses: -Tonic, stomachic, febrifuge, anthelmintic.

A nervine tonic, particularly helpful against the falling sickness and for flatulence. It is a good remedy for enfeebled digestion and debility.

Preparations: Fluid extract, 1/2 to 1 drachm. Wormwood Tea, made from 1 OZ. of the herb, infused for 10 to 12 minutes in 1 pint of boiling water, and taken in wineglassful doses, will relieve melancholia and help to dispel the yellow hue of jaundice from the skin, as well as being a good stomachic, and with the addition of fixed alkaline salt, produced from the burnt plant, is a powerful diuretic in some dropsical cases. The ashes yield a purer alkaline salt than most other vegetables, except Beanstalks and Broom.

The juice of the larger leaves which grow from the root before the stalk appears has been used as a remedy for jaundice and dropsy, but it is intensely nauseous. A light infusion of the tops of the plant, used fresh, is excellent for all disorders of the stomach, creating an appetite, promoting digestion and preventing sickness after meals, but it is said to produce the contrary effect if made too strong.

The flowers, dried and powdered, are most effectual as a vermifuge, and used to be considered excellent in agues. The essential oil of the herb is used as a worm-expeller, the spirituous extract being preferable to that distilled in water. The leaves give out nearly the whole of their smell and taste both to spirit and water, but the cold water infusions are the least offensive.

The intensely bitter, tonic and stimulant qualities have caused Wormwood not only to be an ingredient in medicinal preparations, but also to be used in various liqueurs, of which absinthe is the chief, the basis of absinthe being absinthol, extracted from Wormwood. Wormwood, as employed in making this liqueur, bears also the name ‘Wermuth’ – preserver of the mind – from its medicinal virtues as a nervine and mental restorative. If not taken habitually, it soothes spinal irritability and gives tone to persons of a highly nervous temperament. Suitable allowances of the diluted liqueur will promote salutary perspiration and may be given as a vermifuge. Inferior absinthe is generally adulterated with copper, which produces the characteristic green colour.

The drug, absinthium, is rarely employed, but it might be of value in nervous diseases such as neurasthenia, as it stimulates the cerebral hemispheres, and is a direct stimulant of the cortex cerebri. When taken to excess it produces giddiness and attacks of epileptiform convulsions. Absinthium occurs in the British Pharmacopoeia in the form of extract, infusion and tincture, and is directed to be extracted also from A. maritima, the Sea Wormwood, which possesses the same virtues in a less degree, and is often more used as a stomachic than the Common Wormwood. Commercially this often goes under the name of Roman Wormwood, though that name really belongs to A. Pontica. All three species were used, as in Culpepper’s time.

Dr. John Hill (1772) recommends Common Wormwood in many forms. He says:
‘The Leaves have been commonly used, but the flowery tops are the right part. These, made into a light infusion, strengthen digestion, correct acidities, and supply the place of gall, where, as in many constitutions, that is deficient. One ounce of the Flowers and Buds should be put into an earthen vessel, and a pint and a half of boiling water poured on them, and thus to stand all night. In the morning the clear liquor with two spoonfuls of wine should be taken at three draughts, an hour and a half distance from one another. Whoever will do this regularly for a week, will have no sickness after meals, will feel none of that fulness so frequent from indigestion, and wind will be no more troublesome; if afterwards, he will take but a fourth part of this each day, the benefit will be lasting.’
He further tells us that if an ounce of these flowers be put into a pint of brandy and let to stand six weeks, the resultant tincture will in a great measure prevent the increase of gravel – and give great relief in gout. ‘The celebrated Baron Haller has found vast benefit by this; and myself have very happily followed his example.
2.WORMWOOD, ROMAN
_______________
Botanical Name: Artemesia pontica
Family:
N.O. Compositae
Part Used: Herb.
Roman Wormwood (Artemesia Pontica) is not indigenous to this country, being a native of Southern Europe. It grows about the same height as the Common Wormwood, but has smaller and more finely cut leaves, the segments being narrower, the upper leaves more resembling those of Southernwood; the leaves are white with fine hairs on both upper and under surfaces. The flowers, which blossom in July, are numerous, at the tops of the branches, and are darker and much smaller than those of Common Wormwood.

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This is the most delicate though the least strong of the Wormwoods; the aromatic flavour with which its bitterness is mixed causes it to be employed in making the liqueur Vermuth.

Medicinally, the fresh tops are used, and also the whole herb, dried. Much of the A. Pontica in commerce is A. maritima.

Culpepper considered the Roman Wormwood ‘excellent to strengthen the stomach.’ Also that ‘the juice of the fresh tops is good against obstructions of the liver and spleen. . . . An infusion of the flowering tops strengthens digestion. A tincture is good against gravel and gives great relief in the gout.’

Dr. John Hill says of this plant that it is the ‘most delicate, but of least strength. The Wormwood wine, so famous with the Germans, is made with Roman Wormwood, put into the juice and work’d with it; it is a strong and an excellent wine, not unpleasant, yet of such efficacy to give an appetite that the Germans drink a glass with every other mouthful, and that way eat for hours together, without sickness or indigestion.’
3.WORMWOOD SEA
____________
Botanical Name:
Artemesia maritima
Family: N.O. Compositae
Synonym: Old Woman.
Parts Used: Young flowering tops and shoots.
Habitat: In Britain it is found as far-as Wigton on the West and Aberdeen on the East; also in north-east Ireland and in the Channel Islands.
The Sea Wormwood, in its many variations of form, has an extremely wide distribution in the northern hemisphere of the Old World, occurring mostly in saltish soils. It is found in the salt marshes of the British Isles, on the coasts of the Baltic, of France and the Mediterranean, and on saline soils in Hungary; thence it extends eastwards, covering immense tracts in Southern Russia, the region of the Caspian and Central Siberia to Chinese Mongolia.

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Description: It somewhat resembles Artemesia Absinthium, but is smaller. Thestems rise about a foot or 18 inches in height. The leaves are twice pinnatifid, with narrow, linear segments, and, like the whole plant, are covered on both sides with a white cottony down. The small, oblong flower-heads – each containing three to six tubular florets – are of a yellowish or brownish tint; they are produced in August and September, and are arranged in racemes, sometimes drooping, sometimes erect.

Popularly this species is called ‘Old Woman,’ in distinction to ‘Old Man’ or Southernwood, which it somewhat resembles, though it is more delicate-looking and lacks the peculiar refreshing scent of ‘Old Man.’

Dr. Hill says of this species:
‘This is a very noble bitter: its peculiar province is to give an appetite, as that of the Common Wormwood is to assist digestion; the flowery tops and the young shoots possess the virtue: the older Leaves and the Stalk should be thrown away as useless. . . . The apothecaries put three times as much sugar as of the ingredient in their Conserves; but the virtue is lost in the sweetness, those will not keep so well that have less sugar, but ’tis easy to make them fresh as they are wanted.’
The plant abounds in salt marshes in which cattle have been observed to fatten quickly, and thus the herb has acquired the reputation of being beneficial to them, but they do not eat it generally, and the richness of maritime pasturage must be regarded as the true reason of their improvement under such circumstances.

Medicinal Action and Uses: The plant possesses the same properties as the otherWormwoods, but is less powerful. It is a bitter tonic and aromatic.

Although it is not now employed in regular medical practice, it is often made use of by country people for intermittent fever, and for various other medicinal purposes instead of the true Wormwood.

Thornton, in his Family Herbal, tells us that:
‘beat up with thrice its weight of fine sugar, it is made up into a conserve ordered by the London College, and may be taken where the other preparations disgust too much.’
It acts as a tonic and is good in worm cases, and Culpepper gives the following uses for it:
‘Boiling water poured upon it produces an excellent stomachic infusion, but the best way is taking it in a tincture made with brandy. Hysteric complaints have been completely cured by the constant use of this tincture. In the scurvy and in the hypochondriacal disorders of studious, sedentary men, few things have a greater effect: for these it is best in strong infusion. The whole blood and all the juices of the body are effected by taking this herb. It is often used in medicine instead of the Roman Wormwood, though it falls far short of it in virtue.’

Resources:

http://en.wikipedia.org

www.botanical.com

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