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Tiffany Kelly
Pardon my ignorance on this if there is something glaringly obvious I am simply overlooking, but I was curious what the pathway was for mucilage to help other parts of the body when taken internally. Is mucilage just a by product and more of an indicator that the herbs’ chemical constituents are soothing in nature, or is the actual mucilage the beneficial component?
If it’s the latter, how does ingesting a demulcent herb that goes through the GI tract and is digested then excreted help inflamed lungs for example? In those cases where demulcents are being added to a formula to sooth some area of the body that the ingested herb will not have any contact with whatsoever – how does the mucilage “get there”?
As I said, I might be overlooking something stupidly obvious, and I am only about 20% into the course at this point, but it’s a question that’s been pecking around inside my head for a bit now. Thanks!
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MercyS
As far as I know, the answer to your question is, we don’t know for sure! But the demulcents that affect the GI tract going down, also seem to reflexively then go to work affecting other embryonically related mucosal tissue elsewhere – (lungs, for example). Is it a spinal reflex? We don’t know. All we know is, it works. I think the takeaway is, herbs are way smarter than we are, still. Wise medicine. We can best at times humbly watch and try to learn. They will not be fit into neat little western reductionist “boxes”.
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Mercy thank you for taking the time to chime in. Coming from a veterinary background, I am inclined to lean towards the science. It is part of my personality. I do understand that there are pathways that herbs work in that we do not fully comprehend, however, with all the scientific research that has been performed and is being performed on medicinal effects of herbs, I thought perhaps someone might know of a study that could shed some light on this. Thanks for your perspective! 🙂
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