We need to start with a small number of herbs. Then, we need to know the different symptoms that call for each one, so that we know when to use one or another. Finally, we need to make this so simple and safe that it is easy to get it right. When we do that, it gives us one of the most important ingredients we will ever need to use herbs: confidence. As in, “Wow, that really worked!”
We'll start with first-aid herbs that can be used externally on cuts and wounds, and are easy to get at an herb store (always support your local store, because the internet is driving them out of business), or can be picked from your garden, yard, or pasture (if you know what you are doing—I would trust a class from a real herbalist more than a plant-identifying app on your phone).
There are lots of differences between one cut and another. There are cuts where the blood runs freely and ones where it oozes; ones that are clean-edged or jagged; ones that are dirty, infected, or not-yet-infected. If we get exactly the right remedy based on the specific symptoms, we will experience that “wow” moment and our confidence will grow.
Different types of herbs can be applied to wounds to promote healing. (sanjeri/Getty Images)
Plantain
One of the most common herbs is plantain—not the banana plantain, but the little green leaf that grows in the lawn or along paths (Plantago major, P. lanceolata). It grows where the ground is beaten down. I’ve seen it in puddles in a barnyard where nothing else grew, because it was the only plant that could draw water and minerals out of that compacted, damp soil.
This is the herb for wounds with dirt in them, or infected wounds. It is what we call a “drawing agent,” like bentonite clay. It is astringent (drawing), yet moistening and lubricating, so it just draws out the impurity: pus, splinters, dirt. It can also be a bit anodyne (pain-relieving), though it is not for the really painful wounds.
Not only is plantain common, but it’s also simple to use: Chew it up and put on the wound. You can also use the dried herb or a preparation from an herb store.
This herb also does well on bug bites, but you have to get it on in less than 10 minutes. I used it once for poison ivy, but it is not my favorite.
Plantain is excellent for the infected root of a tooth. I remember one evening years ago, in the herb store, a woman I knew called.
“I just had two molars pulled out on the upper jaw and they are infected. It’s moving into my sinus up my face. What should I do?”
“Why don’t you go to the emergency room,” I said. This could go to the brain and infect deeply. I wasn’t joking, but she thought I was.
“Well,” she said sarcastically, “what should I do on the way to the ER?”
Calendula
A well-known first-aid plant that overlaps with plantain is calendula flower (Calendula officinalis). It’s sold commercially, but you can grow it in your garden or pick the wild sort in California (C. arvensis). The medicine is in the sticky part under the crown of the flower.
This is also for infected wounds, or for keeping them from being infected or getting worse. Scientists call it bacteriostatic, as in, it keeps the little critter population static while the wound heals. While plantain pulls to the surface and out through the wound, calendula drains from the inside, through the lymphatics, so it is a good remedy for lymphatic glands that have been swollen for a while.
Calendula is not for a recent infection with lingering swollen glands; cleavers (Galium aparine) would be better for that. Put the appropriate one on externally, or both if you are unsure. Both are safe.
Calendula flowers can be found in stores, but you can also grow them in your garden. (Africa Studio/shutterstock)
Yarrow
What do we do if it’s not a dirty sort of cut, but sharp-edged and bleeding like crazy? There’s an herb for that.My favorite is yarrow (Achillea millefolium). It’s named for Achilles and known as “carpenter’s weed” or “soldier’s woundwort.” This is native to and used all over the Northern Hemisphere. “Medicine for the wounded” is the Lakota name. It grows everywhere too, though less in hot climates.
Yarrow is highly identifiable. If you know what it looks like—again, you need to know what you are doing—you can pick it and put it on an injury. One of my students cut himself with a chainsaw in the woods. He walked to the logging road (the plant thrives in sunshine), picked some yarrow, put it on, and stopped the bleeding and started the healing.
I once sliced off a big hunk of my left pointer finger with a chop saw—blood all over. I ran indoors to the herb cabinet (mine stretches from floor to ceiling), grabbed the yarrow tincture, and put it on. The bleeding stopped. There was no pain. Yarrow stops the pain of cuts, though not most other kinds of pain. It started bleeding again 20 minutes later, but I put more yarrow on it, and it healed over the next two weeks.
Another time I had a cut, I put the yarrow on, and I could look straight down into the cut and see the two inside surfaces with no blood coming out. That’s yarrow.
They say to put a fresh branch of yarrow around a workshop to protect against injuries. Its smell makes you more alert, but that scent wears off after six months.
St. John’s Wort
What if there is really a lot of pain, from a cut nerve? That’s where we use St. John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum).
The stories here are the terrible ones. My 56-year-old cousin cut off two fingers; they were hanging by the skin. He put on calendula and St. John’s wort and went to the ER.
“Well, we can sew them back on, but you’re older, so you might not regenerate tissue like a young person. You’ll know in three days,” they told him. Afterward, he could still play the mandolin and the pedal steel guitar. (That’s my cousin, the late Winnie Winston, author of the book, “Pedal Steel Guitar.”)
A friend’s wife stuck an awl up under her fingernail. A red streak was running up the arm.
“What should we do?”
“Why don’t you go to the ER?”
“Well, we’re not gonna do that.”
I told them to take St. John’s wort oil—the best form—and she was streak-less the next day.
One time, a student called me. A friend had cut his hand between the fingers down into the wrist bones on a table saw—I’ll never use one after this story. Hospital. Bandaged up. Opioids. She put St. John’s wort on his arm and the pain went way down.
“He was laughing with us,” she said.
She also observed—we are always learning—“You know how you say boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum) helps the bones find each other and rejoin them? I think St. John’s wort does that for the nerves.”
