Hildegard's Healing Plants: From the Medieval Classic Physica
By: Hildegard Von Bingen, Bruce W. Hozeski (Translator)
ISBN: 0807021083
Publisher: Beacon Press - 2001-05
Hardcover | 192 Pages | List Price: $20.00 (USD) | Sales Rank: 930214

Book Description
Given the current popularity of nutritional therapy involving certain plants, vegetables and herbs, it would be easy to assume that this approach to good health is based on recent knowledge, yet the recognition that plants have healing properties is older than, well, dirt. The use of aloe to treat burns, or ginger to relieve an upset stomach can be traced to folklore, and readers curious about just how such treatments were discovered in the first place will be illuminated by this translation of Hildegard von Bingen's twelfth-century treatise. A learned nun, poet, prophet, and physician, Hildegard wrote voluminously about medicine and natural science, herein describing some 230 plants with therapeutic qualities. Although its archaic language and questionable logic make it unsuitable for literal application to any modern medical condition, the book can be appreciated by students of herbal folklore as well as those interested in medieval culture. Carol Haggas
Copyright American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Medieval saint, mystic, healer, and visionary—Hildegard von Bingen has made a comeback. She is now popular in natural healing circles, in medieval and women's studies, and among those interested in investing the everyday with the spiritual.

Hildegard's Healing Plants is a gift version and new translation of the "Plant" section of Physica, Hildegard's classic work on health and healing. Hildegard comments on 230 plants and grains—most of which are still grown in home gardens and sold at local health food stores. In one of many entries on women's health, Hildegard writes, "Also if a pregnant woman labors much in childbirth, let someone cook pleasant herbs, such as fennel and assurum, in water with fear and great moderation, squeeze out the water, and place them while they are warm around her thighs and back, tied gently with a piece of cloth, so that her pain and her closed womb is opened more pleasantly and easily."

Whether read for the sheer enjoyment of Hildegard's earthy, intelligent voice ("Let a man who has an overabundance of lust in his loins cook wild lettuce in water and pour it over himself in a sauna") or for her encyclopedic and often still relevant understanding of natural health, Hildegard's Healing Plants is a treasure for gardeners, natural healing enthusiasts, and Hildegard fans everywhere.


Amazon Review
Hildegard Von Bingen was a mystic, a musician, a moralist, as well as a poet, playright, and prophet. She added a little science in there, too, and some believe she must have been a physician. She follows the tradition of the time in that created things are composed of four elements: hot or cold, and wet or dry. She then goes on to tell the medicinal uses for over 200 plants. From aloe to oats to valerian, even an opinion on St. John's wort, it is amazing that the same plants continue to be a part of natural healing over 800 years after this book was written. That alone makes the book very interesting...

Amazon Categories
Subjects > Health, Mind & Body > Alternative Medicine > General
Subjects > Health, Mind & Body > Alternative Medicine > Herbal Remedies
Subjects > Religion & Spirituality > Authors, A-Z > ( H ) > Hildegard of Bingen
Diet / Health / Fitness
Early works to 1800
Health/Fitness
Herbal Medications
Herbs
Medicinal plants
Medicine, Medieval
Therapeutic use
This ebook originally posted in Other Category


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