Rosemary Gladstar is an American herbalist, author and educator [1] and known as the godmother of modern herbalism. [2]
Gladstar began her work in herbalism in California. In 1978, Gladstar founded the California School of Herbal Studies in Forestville, California, the oldest running herb school in the United States. [3] In the 1980s, Gladstar co-founded the New England Women's Herbal Conference. [4]
She moved to Vermont in 1987 and co-founded Sage Mountain Herbal Retreat Center and Botanical Sanctuary, a 550-acre botanical preserve in central Vermont. [5] In 2020s. it was incorporated into a 501c3 non-profit organization and renamed as Sage Mountain Botanical Sanctuary. [6]
In 1990s, Gladstar started home study herbal course. The course was later developed into the online course, Science and Art of Herbalism which hundreds of students studied globally. [7] Gladstar helped found the Northeast Herb Association in 1991. [8]
In 1994, Gladstar founded United Plant Savers out of concern over the ecological sustainability of the herb trade; [9] she serves as the Founding President of the Board of Directors of United Plant Savers. [10] The organization has received several awards including the inaugural Steven Foster Award for Conservation and Sustainability from the American Botanical Council in 2022. [11]
In 1998, Gladstar founded the International Herb Symposium. It is a biennial event for herbalists from across the globe to exchange information on herbs. The 16th International Herb Symposium was held in 2023. [12]
Gladstar is the author of several books as listed below. She has taught herbs extensively throughout the U.S. and speaks widely at herbal conferences including the Southwest Conference, Medicines from the Earth, the Green Nations Gathering and Breitenbush. [13] She also leads herbal travel adventures in various parts of the world.
Gladstar is a faculty member of Association for the Advancement of Restorative Medicine. [3]
In recognition of her contributions to natural medicine as an herbalist, author and educator, she received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree (LL D) from the National University of Natural Medicine in 2017. [1]
“Rosemary Gladstar's Herbal Recipes for Vibrant Health” has been translated into German and Japanese.
Salvia officinalis, the common sage or sage, is a perennial, evergreen subshrub, with woody stems, grayish leaves, and blue to purplish flowers. It is a member of the mint family Lamiaceae and native to the Mediterranean region, though it has been naturalized in many places throughout the world. It has a long history of medicinal and culinary use, and in modern times it has been used as an ornamental garden plant. The common name "sage" is also used for closely related species and cultivars.
Herbal medicine is the study of pharmacognosy and the use of medicinal plants, which are a basis of traditional medicine. With worldwide research into pharmacology, some herbal medicines have been translated into modern remedies, such as the anti-malarial group of drugs called artemisinin isolated from Artemisia annua, a herb that was known in Chinese medicine to treat fever. There is limited scientific evidence for the safety and efficacy of many plants used in 21st-century herbalism, which generally does not provide standards for purity or dosage. The scope of herbal medicine sometimes include fungal and bee products, as well as minerals, shells and certain animal parts.
Traditional medicine comprises medical aspects of traditional knowledge that developed over generations within the folk beliefs of various societies, including indigenous peoples, before the era of modern medicine. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines traditional medicine as "the sum total of the knowledge, skills, and practices based on the theories, beliefs, and experiences indigenous to different cultures, whether explicable or not, used in the maintenance of health as well as in the prevention, diagnosis, improvement and treatment of physical and mental illness". Traditional medicine is often contrasted with scientific medicine.
Nicholas Culpeper was an English botanist, herbalist, physician and astrologer. His book The English Physitian is a source of pharmaceutical and herbal lore of the time, and Astrological Judgement of Diseases from the Decumbiture of the Sick (1655) one of the most detailed works on medical astrology in Early Modern Europe. Culpeper catalogued hundreds of outdoor medicinal herbs. He scolded contemporaries for some of the methods they used in herbal medicine: "This not being pleasing, and less profitable to me, I consulted with my two brothers, Dr. Reason and Dr. Experience, and took a voyage to visit my mother Nature, by whose advice, together with the help of Dr. Diligence, I at last obtained my desire; and, being warned by Mr. Honesty, a stranger in our days, to publish it to the world, I have done it."
A herbal is a book containing the names and descriptions of plants, usually with information on their medicinal, tonic, culinary, toxic, hallucinatory, aromatic, or magical powers, and the legends associated with them. A herbal may also classify the plants it describes, may give recipes for herbal extracts, tinctures, or potions, and sometimes include mineral and animal medicaments in addition to those obtained from plants. Herbals were often illustrated to assist plant identification.
Medicinal plants, also called medicinal herbs, have been discovered and used in traditional medicine practices since prehistoric times. Plants synthesize hundreds of chemical compounds for various functions, including defense and protection against insects, fungi, diseases, and herbivorous mammals.
Plantago major, the broadleaf plantain, white man's footprint, waybread, or greater plantain, is a species of flowering plant in the plantain family Plantaginaceae. The plant is native to Eurasia.
James A. Duke was an American botanist. He was the author of numerous publications on botanical medicine, including the CRC Handbook of Medicinal Herbs. He was well known for his 1997 bestseller, The Green Pharmacy. He developed the Dr. Duke's Phytochemical and Ethnobotanical Databases at the USDA.
Ellen Evert Hopman is an author of both fiction and non-fiction, an herbalist, a lay homeopath, a lecturer, and a mental health counselor who lives and works in Western Massachusetts. She is the author of several books and audio tapes on Paganism and Druidry, and three novels.
Arthur Lee "Tommie" Bass was an Appalachian herbalist who lived near Lookout Mountain, Alabama.
The International Herb Symposium is a biannual conference held at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts to discuss botanical medicine, herbal conservation and the survival of First World herbal traditions. This conference is one of the largest herb conferences held in the United States and the only worldwide herbal conference with an explicit international focus, including speakers from Africa, Tibet, Central and South America and American Indian tribes. During this conference, over 100 workshops are typically presented during a single weekend – ranging from indigenous traditional to scientific uses of botanicals. The conference is organized by Rosemary Gladstar and Sage Mountain Retreat Center and features speakers from all over the world.
Duncan Scott Napier was a Scottish botanist, herbalist and businessman. Despite having a deprived childhood and being functionally illiterate until his early teens, he became an expert in herbal remedies and did much to establish herbalism as a recognised branch of medicine. The herbalist business that he founded stayed in his family for three generations and still exists today.
Yorùbá medicine, or egbòogi, is an Yoruba system of herbalism practiced primarily in West Africa and the Caribbean.
Maria Treben née Günzel was an Austrian writer and herbalist who came to fame in the 1980s for her books.
Ramuan is an Indonesian-Malay term referring to a blend of ingredients selected to provide health benefits in the preparation of food or the creation of herbal medicines. Ramuan may consist of leaves, stems, barks, fruits and roots, traditionally gathered from the rainforest.
In general use, herbs are a widely distributed and widespread group of plants, excluding vegetables and other plants consumed for macronutrients, with savory or aromatic properties that are used for flavoring and garnishing food, for medicinal purposes, or for fragrances. Culinary use typically distinguishes herbs from spices. Herbs generally refers to the leafy green or flowering parts of a plant, while spices are usually dried and produced from other parts of the plant, including seeds, bark, roots and fruits.
The history of herbalism is closely tied with the history of medicine from prehistoric times up until the development of the germ theory of disease in the 19th century. Modern medicine from the 19th century to today has been based on evidence gathered using the scientific method. Evidence-based use of pharmaceutical drugs, often derived from medicinal plants, has largely replaced herbal treatments in modern health care. However, many people continue to employ various forms of traditional or alternative medicine. These systems often have a significant herbal component. The history of herbalism also overlaps with food history, as many of the herbs and spices historically used by humans to season food yield useful medicinal compounds, and use of spices with antimicrobial activity in cooking is part of an ancient response to the threat of food-borne pathogens.
United Plant Savers is a nonprofit organization based in Rutland, OH on 379-acre Botanical Sanctuary whose goal is to promote the preservation of native North American medicinal plants. The group maintains an "At Risk" list of plants that are considered scarce in the wild in North America, such as ginseng, goldenseal and slippery elm. The organization was founded by Rosemary Gladstar and a number of other horticulturists. The organization encourages the creation of private land "botanical sanctuaries" across the country where at risk plants can be preserved and propagated.
Stephen Harrod Buhner was an American herbalist and writer.
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