Sage - A Herb Healer And Preserver

Sage or 'Salvia', meaning to heal in Latin, is an ancient herb used for thousands of years for the purposes of cooking and healing. In ancient Roman and Grecian times, the herb was firstly used as a meat preservative. It was also believed to be a memory enhancer like rosemary. Pliny, the Roman naturalist recommended sage for treating epilepsy, snakebite, chest ailments, intestinal worms and menstruation.

Sage was first introduced into North America by early colonizers who used it for epilepsia treatment, insomnia, seasickness, measles and intestinal worms. Healers in the nineteenth century then used sage for treating fever and prescribed it as a poultice for arthritis and as a tea for depression and sexual urges.

Medical books in the U.S. recommend sage as a tea gargle for curing sore throat and for sprains and swellings as a sage leaf poultice. The many active ingredients in sage tend to include the chemicals alpha and beta thujone, cineole, camphor, tannins, flavonoids and rosmarnic acid amongst others. Below are a few very effective uses for sage even today.

Antiperspirant: The aromatic oils in sage are also known to reduce perspiration. Further studies have shown that there might be a fifty percent reduction in perspiration when sage is ingested, the highest effect occurring following two hours of ingestion. This might explain the use of sage for treating fever, when sweating is involved as well as its use in drying maternal milk.

Diabetes: Studies in Germany have shown that sage infusion, drunk on an empty stomach was known to reduce blood sugar levels in patients with diabetes. If sage is used by diabetics it must be ingested in conjunction with proper medical management as diabetes is a serious medical condition.

Digestive aid: The herb known as sage is known to relax the digestive tracts and smoothe the inner muscle lining. This might explain why it is used for gastrointestinal ailments.

Preservative: When the fats in meats oxidize, that is, become rancid, the meat becomes rotten. Sage, similarly to rosemary has many powerful antioxidants which make it possible to preserve the meat by slowing its capacity for spoilage. In fact, the antioxidants found in sage can also be compared to commercial preservatives like BHT and BHA and this gives further credibility to its use as a traditional preservative. In fact, it might be very wise to prevent a mishap on a picnic by adding a generous portion of sage to tuna paste, pastas, hamburger meat as well as potato salads.

Sore throat: Many astringent types of tannin are also present in sage, thus accounting for its use in treating bleeding gums, canker sores and sore throat. German physicians usually recommend hot sage gargles for tonsillitis as well as sore throat.

Wound treatments: Modern laboratory experiments have demonstrated sage to have some very efficient antibacterial properties. This supports the use of sage in treating and cleaning wounds. Today, doctors don't recommend using sage leaves for bandaging wounds but crushed leaves could be applied to scrapes and cuts as a temporary measure until proper treatment can be found.

Sage is indeed a wonderful gift from nature as the Greeks and Romans believed in its virtues far before our time.