Good For What’s Hurting You
March 9, 2022
The common wisdom is that willow has always been used for pain relief. I've been told that it was recommended by Hippocrates, Galen and Dioscorides for that. However, when I sat down to research this post I was unable to find much mention of willow in the books of these men. The mentions that I did find mostly recommended it to be used externally and to alleviate conditions such as dandruff.
The Leechbook of Bald suggests this use for it:
A head bath for that (baldness); boil willow leaves in water, wash with that, ere thou sinear it, and pound the leaves so sodden, bind on at night, till they be dry, that thou may after smear with the salve ; do so for thirty nights, longer if need for it be.
It also suggests willow in salve form with various other herbs for headache.
![Carlo Crivelli (circa 1435–circa 1495) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://www.echoesofthegarden.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/256px-Carlo_Crivelli_052.jpg "Carlo Crivelli (circa 1435–circa 1495) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons")
Culpepper says:
The decoction of the leaves or bark in wine, takes away scurff and dandrif by washing the place with it.
We still use it for this. You can purchase dandruff shampoo with salicylic acid as the active ingredient in any drugstore.
![The Portable Antiquities Scheme/ The Trustees of the British Museum [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://www.echoesofthegarden.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Post-medieval__Pipe_Tamper_FindID_514430-web.jpg "The Portable Antiquities Scheme/ The Trustees of the British Museum [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons")
You might want to keep in mind that Culpepper also says this:
The leaves bruised and boiled in wine, and drank, stays the heat of lust in man or woman, and quite extinguishes it, if it be long used.
Gerard says that:
The leaves and barke of Withy or Willowes do stay the spitting of bloud, and all other fluxes of bloud whatsoever in man or woman,if the said leaves and barke be boyled in wine and drunke.
Most of what I have read says that it was the Ancient Sumerians that used the willow for pain relief and that for some reason it fell out of favor or didn't carry forward. I hadn't realized that any Sumerian medical texts had survived. Now I'm on a mission looking for translations. Regardless of who first used it for pain, we know today that it's a valuable pain reliever and anti-inflammatory.
It gained the interest of the medical community in the mid-1700s as a treatment for ague and again in the late 1800s when a German chemist created aspirin as we know it today. This site has a good summary of the path between the herb and the drug.
There has apparently been far less research on willow bark than it deserves. This abstract touches on what has been done and provides links to other studies at the bottom. Mount Sinai Hospital has this information about its use.
This site has good information in an easy to read format.
Willow bark is not the same as aspirin and there are some good reasons to choose one over the other. Willow bark is a good pain reliever and anti-inflammatory. It also doesn't cause as much gastrointestinal distress as aspirin. However, it doesn't work very well as a blood thinner and may even help to control bleeding. If you decide to try willow bark, this site has good directions on how to make willow bark "aspirin" in several different forms.
If you decide to make your own willow bark tea by foraging your willow, this video tells how to do it and has a good identification segment. Please remember to always make a positive identification of a plant BEFORE you eat it, not after!
Thanks for stopping by.
