Herbage

by Tim Johnson

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3rd Edition CD-ROM www.holisticopia.com $100.

I prescribe herbs extensively in my practice, so it seemed natural for me to review the reference CD Herbage. It looks unassuming enough, one CD with a simple bifold paper inserted into the CD case. Looks can deceive. It contains 28,000 concise (quite brief) monographs about medicinal plants. It also lists historical attributes from around the world. The sheer number of herbs covered is astounding. From Aaron’s Beard to Zizotes Milkweed, most of the herbs were exotic or uncommon.

Once you review the brief monograph on the herb, Herbage takes you deep into the Internet database using a web-browser to explore the 3 largest ethnobotany databases and 18 leading works on the subject. Needless to say the sheer volume of data looks staggering. Some of my search requests brought up over 8,000 responses.

I found this reference work to be an exceptional tool for research as I worked to prepare articles or presentations. However, I found it to be cumbersome for standard clinical applications. You do not have a simple overview to fall back on. The Internet resources often give you hundreds of options to review on a topic – very time consuming. Some of the material seemed dated. For example, the monograph on Kava Kava did not mention a warning about liver toxicity – in the news over the last two years. The summation on herbs for anxiety did not list Kava Kava either. On the other hand, a search for herbs for eye ailments netted 275 different herbs.

This work would be useful if someone came upon an exotic herb unlisted in standard references. It would also be helpful to find herbs for a very unusual indication such as: ardor (6 references), aftosa (15 references), aque (41 references) or actinomycosis (just one: teucrium scorodium).

If you want a resource to take your reference database on herbs to another level, Herbage is for you. This is not for the novice and it is not easy to use for quick clinical reference. In the right hands it can lead you to a wonderful article on the value of Teucrium Scorodium to clear heavy metals from silver mines in Ireland. Wow!

It is available from the author’s website http://www.holisticopia.com/

Review by Scott Shannon, MD
McKee Center for Holistic Medicine
Loveland, CO 80538
(970)663-9228
samethng@aol.com

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