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CHAMOMILE
(CHAMAEMELUM NOBILE), (ANTHEMIS NOBILIS)
 

Chamomile is one of the oldest favorites amongst garden herbs and its reputation as a medicinal plant shows little signs of abatement. The Egyptians reverenced it for its virtues, and from their belief in its power to cure ague, dedicated it to their gods.

---Parts Used---Flowers and herb.

The active principles are a volatile oil, of a pale blue-collar (becoming yellow by keeping), a little Anthemic acid (the bitter principle), tannic acid and a glucoside.

---Medicinal Action and Uses---Tonic, achic, anodyne and antispasmodic. The official preparations are a decoction, an infusion, the extract and the oil. Chamomile flowers are recommended as a tonic in dropsical complaints for their diuretic and tonic properties, and are also combined with diaphoretics and other stimulants with advantage.

Chamomile has been used all down the ages and does not look like falling from favour. It plays an important part in modern herbal practice. The infusion is excellent for migraine and headache due to gastric disturbances. It will also regulate the menstrual periods.

Chamomile flowers are also extensively used by themselves, or combined with an equal quantity of crushed poppy-heads, as a poultice and fomentation for external swelling, inflammatory pain or congested neuralgia, and will relieve where other remedies have failed, proving invaluable for reducing swellings of the face caused through abscesses. Bags may be loosely stuffed with flowers and steeped well in boiling water before being applied as a fomentation. The antiseptic powers of Chamomile are stated to be 120 times stronger than sea-water. Chamomile flowers and poppy heads is used hot as fomentation to abscesses

The herb has also been employed in hot fomentations in cases of local and intestinal inflammation.