The History of Echinacea

Learn about Echinacea’s rich history!

It is nice to have warm weather for a while, but the cold is coming and we must prepare for the cold and flu season.  Echinacea is a wonderful herb that can help us greatly during this time.

History
Echinacea has been known throughout the world for centuries, but came into prominence during the 1800’s. It is said to have been used as a “remedy for more ailments than any other plant.”

We get much of our information on Echinacea from the American Indians of the Great Plains who used it extensively. The Cheyenne used the leaves and roots as a tea for sore throats, gums, and mouth. An infusion of the root was rubbed on sore necks. The Crows used the fresh root for toothache pain. The Plains Indians also used Echinacea for snake bite, hydrophobia, and septic conditions, enlarged glands, headaches, stings, poisonous conditions, distemper, mumps, measles, rheuatism, arthritis, veneral diseases, and smallpox.

Medicinal Properties & Uses 
The main property of the plant is claimed to be “a correction of the depravation of the body fluids”. In other words, it removes “bad blood”, and by so doing, it helps many aliments. Echinacea is the herb for auto-infection, where the bloodstream becomes slowly infected from within or without. When elimination is stagnant and the body tissues become toxic, various internal or external problems may result where Echinacea could be beneficial. Echinacea is well known for boosting and strengthening the immune system to fight off foreign invaders like colds and flus.

The herb is anesthetic in its local influence and applied to an open wound and painful swellings, while the tincture results in immediate relief of pain. It is said to relieve the pain of erysipelas and cancerous growths. Herbalist Michael Tierra states in The Way of Herbs that the only times he has known Echinacea to fail has been when not enough has been taken.  Echinacea indeed is a valuable herb we would benefit from using.  

Echinacea Strength TEST
Caution:   Not too many commercial Echinacea extracts are strong enough to get the desired result. True Echinacea has a tingling and numbing sensation.  To test if the product is strong, take a dropper of Echinacea tincture, swish it around in the mouth and swallow.  Your tongue should feel tingling and a little numbing.  With Herbs4You Echinacea, the tingling sensation lasts around 5 minutes!

Echinacea Products
At Herbs4You, we sell high potency Echinacea Tincture as a single herb and it contains both Echinacea purpurea and augustifolia. We also offer other products containing Echinacea. These include: