The Medicinal Plants - Chamomile

Other Common Names: Amerale, Babunnej, Bayboon, Camomile, German Chamomile, Manzanilla, German Chamomile, Kami-Ture, Manzanilla, Manzanilla Dulce, Papatya, Matricaria recutita

Range: Belgium; Britain; Chile; China; Dominican Republic; Europe; France; Hungary; Iraq; Kurdistan; Mexico; Peru; Spain; Turkey; Venezuela

Habitat: Sandy or loamy arable soils. Also found on saline steppes in Europe.

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.

No plant was better known to the country folk of old, it having been grown for centuries in English gardens for its use as a common domestic medicine to such an extent that the old herbals agree that 'it is but lost time and labour to describe it.'

German camomile is a well known herbal remedy and is much used in the West. In particular it is an excellent herb for treating various digestive disorders, nervous tension and irritability and is also used externlally to treat skin problems.

Chamomile Tea, is an old-fashioned but extremely efficacious remedy for hysterical and nervous affections in women. It has a wonderfully soothing, sedative and absolutely harmless effect. It is considered a preventive and the sole certain remedy for nightmare. It will cut short an attack of delirium tremens in the early stage. It has sometimes been employed in intermittent fevers.

An infusion of the flowers is taken internally as an anodyne, anti-inflammatory, antiseptic, antispasmodic, carminative, cholagogue, diaphoretic, emmenagogue, febrifuge, sedative, stomachic, tonic and vasodilator. An infusion is particularly useful as a stomachic, nervine and sedative for young children, especially when they are teething. It is also used in the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn's disease, peptic ulcers and hiatus hernia. In large doses, or when taken reguarly for several times each day, the tea can be emetic and can also cause the symptoms it is intended to cure.

The flowers are also used externally to treat wounds, sunburn, burns, hemorrhoids, mastitis and leg ulcers. The flowers are harvested when fully open and are dried for later use. The flowers contain various volatile oils including proazulenes. Upon steam distillation these proazulenes produce chamazulene, this is remarkably anti-allergenic and is useful in the treatment of asthma and hay fever. The flowers are sometimes added to cosmetics as an anti-allergenic agent.

The whole plant, harvested when in flower, is used to make a homeopathic remedy. It is especially suited to teething children and those who have been in a highly emotional state over a long period of time.

Chamomile Tea should in all cases be prepared in a covered vessel, in order to prevent the escape of steam, as the medicinal value of the flowers is to a considerable extent impaired by any evaporation, and the infusion should be allowed to stand on the flowers for 10 minutes at least before straining off.