Advanced Herbal Pharmacy The Practitioner’s Guide to Preparation, Formulation and Compounding

The wait is over for a practitioner-oriented guidebook instructing on efficacious herbal preparation. Drawing heavily upon vintage western pharmacopoeias, Advanced Herbal Pharmacy uncovers and brings forth what was considered common knowledge to turn of the century (19th/20th) pharmacists/chemists; that is, how to prepare effective herbal medicines with efficiency and without overly elaborate equipment. These well-prepared herbal medicines (or rather ‘organic drugs’) went on to successfully treat a variety of disfunctions, some of which modern medicine struggles with, even to this day.

Dedicated instruction is given to the following preparations: Bath, Capsule, Confection, Douche, Elixir, Emulsion, Enema, Essence, Eyewash, Fluidextract, Fomentation, Glycerite, Medicated Honey, Hydrosol (usage only), Juice, Liniment, Lotion, Lozenge, Mucilage, Essential Oil (usage only), Infused Oil, Ointment, Oleoresin, Oxymel, Plasma, Poultice, Powder, Resin, Salve, Sitz Bath, Solid Extract, Spirit, Suppository, Syrup, Tea, Tincture (Percolation and Maceration), Vinegar, Nasal Wash, Medicated Water, and Medicated Wine.

Also included are percolation and fluidextract worksheets and specific tips/recommendations on various set-ups using lab glassware and cut-glass bottles as percolation cones. The repository lists specific tincture alcohol/water ratios and dosage recommendations for 450+ herbs. The Latin to common name (and reverse) cross-reference maintains 3000+ entries. For the formula-maker, 100+ herbal combinations are presented (with proportions and instructions) as therapeutic examples. Many are custom, arising from the author’s decades-long herbal practice, and then others are traditional originating from the older pharmacopoeias.

This is not an entry-level herbal book, nor a Materia Medica. Advanced Herbal Pharmacy is for the practitioner (or enthusiast), who values a sensible, nuts-and-bolts approach and desires to prepare herbal medicines properly. A properly prepared herbal medicine translates to one that is effective (if applied correctly). When the herbal medicine is effective, people get better, the field improves, and the subject evolves.