Herbal Remedies & Medicines | Home Grown Herbals

I’m on a mission to dispel the modern herbal parable that folks shouldn’t take the herb Echinacea for long amounts of time because its immune-enhancing activity reduces with repeated and constant dosing. Unfortunately this disinformation has become “common knowledge,” while it hasn’t ever been scientifically or medically proved.

This parable developed from the “theory” that because Echinacea “stimulates” the immune mechanism its continual use will cause the immunity mechanism to “fatigue” and reduce its activity. Apparently the medical and pharmacological analysts of Echinacea don’t refer to the herb as an immuno-STIMULANT, but instead use the term immuno-MODULATOR, which miles better describes Echinacea’s pharmacodynamics.

In depth medical and pharmacological research on Echinacea has exposed multiple immune-modulating actions. all this research hasn’t shown any proof which suggests that any of these immuno-modulating actions are reduced by continued use of Echinacea.

But let’s set science aside for a second and look at Echinacea’s clinical use by the Eclectic doctors who practiced drugs from the mid-1880s till the 1930s. Many thousands of Eclectic doctors prescribed many millions of treatments of Echinacea for many decades and yet in their voluminous medical texts and books they never once discussed anything about lessened curative success with Echinacea ( for any cause ).

If they did indeed see such, one would think it would be discussed in their literature one or more times, if not scores of times. And while their empirical proof can’t be considered systematic explanation, I have much confidence in the bedside experience of these doctors who “saw it all.

I have offered a friendly challenge to many notable herbalists and herbal writers who allege Echinacea’s immuno-activity diminishes with constant use.

I have asked them to deliver one reference that supports their claim either from modern medical research, or from the Eclectic or Physiomedicalist literature, or from normal folk medicine sources. For me, I should have something in order to believe either modern systematic proof or historic references, and definitely more than theory and conjecture alone. What I know for sure is that Echinacea “works” and does its immunomodulating job dose, after dose, after dose, after.