In The Book of Herbal Wisdom Matthew Wood creates a vast and sweeping
history of herbalism, drawing on Western botanical knowledge,
homeopathy, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Native American shamanic
botony. Detailing the history and use of more than forty plants, he
shows how each tradition views a plant, as well as its use in cases
drawn from his own herbal and homeopathic practice. An initial section
describes signatures, similars, and patterns in these traditions, and
elements, temperaments, and constitutions. Wood has two objectives: to
demonstrate how herbal medicines are agents of healing and wisdom, and
to give the reader a useful catalogue of plants for medicinal uses. His
clinical observations of his patients bear the wry wisdom of the country
doctor; his love of plants is evident in lush botanical descriptions,
which show the connection between remedies - whether homeopathic,
Chinese, or Native American - and the plants from which they are
derived. The Book of Herbal Wisdom brings to readers centuries of lore
about healing from indigenous traditions, at a time when people are
exploring empirical enthosciences with a seriousness unparalleled in
history. In no other contemporary botanical compendium have North
American Indian medicine, homeopathy, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and
Western herbalism been so thoroughly integrated, and so engagingly
described.
