The Green Pharmacy: New Discoveries in Herbal Remedies for Common Diseases and Conditions from the World's Foremost Authority on Healing Herbs
Author: James A Duk
"Lively, fun to read and filled with gems of wisdom-- a treasure of information from a man who knows as much as anyone in the world about medicinal plants."--Jean Carper, best-selling author of Food-- Your Miracle Medicine and Miracle CuresThe Green PharmacyThousands of safe, natural remedies lie untapped in jungles, forests and herbal gardens throughout the world. Now America's foremost authority on medicinal plants and herbs shares his knowledge of these hidden reserves of healing power.* For Arthritis: A new, all-natural remedy that can cut pain in half.* For Back Pain: A fruit that has anti-inflammatory properties to produce long-term relief.* For Your Heart: An herb that opens up clogged arteries and lowers blood pressure, with none of the side effects of prescription drugs.* For High Cholesterol: A tasty grain that has three times more cholesterol-lowering power than oat bran.* For Migraines: An herb that has the power to eliminate the blurred vision and debilitating pain of these monster headaches.* For Mood Swings: A common food that shares the power of Prozac to boost the brain's level of "feel-good" serotonin.* For Osteoporosis: A prime plant source of calcium that vastly enhances protection against bone depletion.* For Wrinkles: An herbal lotion that has the skin-clearing, wrinkle-reversing power of alpha hydroxy acid but costs only pennies.And much more-- over 120 conditions in all!"The Green Pharmacy is a tour de force by the world's leading authority on the herbal healing traditions...a treasure house of practical advice for the newcomer and pearls of wisdom for the herbal practitioner."--Joseph E. Pizzorno,N.D., president of Bastyr University, Seattle, author of Total Wellness and co-author of Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine
Library Journal
Very readable and fun, The Green Pharmacy is the culmination of the author's 30 years of studying and using herbs. In an interesting mix of folklore and science, Duke, a botanist and authority on healing herbs, describes treatment protocols for over 120 health conditions. Although there is frequent reference to experts and studies, including up-to-date findings from the German Commission E monographs, no accurate references or bibliography are provided. Nonetheless, based on the author's credentials, this is recommended for larger collections. Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
What People Are Saying
Jean Carper
Filled with gems of wisdom--a treasure of information from a man who knows as much as anyone in the world about medicinal plants.
—Jean Carper, author of Miracle Cures
Andrew Weil
The Green Pharmacy is full of helpful, practical information about using plants as medicines. I plan to consult it often.
Andrew Weil, M.D., Director of the Program in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona, and author of Spontaneous Healing
Book about: Color Medicine or Your Heart Needs the Mediterranean Diet
Skin Game: A Memoir
Author: Caroline Kettlewell
Caroline Kettlewell’s autobiography reveals a girl whose feelings of pain and alienation led her to seek relief in physically hurting herself, from age twelve into her twenties. Skin Game employs clear language and candid reflection to grant general readers as well as students an uncensored profile of a complex and unsettling disorder. "[This] mesmeric memoir examines the obsession with cutting that is believed to afflict somewhere around two million Americans, nearly all of them female," Francine Prose noted in Elle. "[Kettlewell’s] language soars and its intensity deepens whenever she is recalling the lost joys and the thrilling sensation of sharp steel against her tender skin."
Elle - Francine Prose
[This] mesmeric memoir examines the obsession with cutting that is believed to afflict somewhere around two million Americans, nearly all of them female...[Kettlewell's] language soars and its intensity deepens whenever she is recalling the lost joys and the thrilling sensation of sharp steel against her tender skin.
BUST Magazine - Laura Barcella
Skin Game is intriguing—it sheds light on a scary but significant modern phenomenon which primarily affects young women, and to which millions of people can certainly relate. Kettlewell helps her readers understand how she used cutting as a balm for her pain and anxiety, and how it worked to reduce "the chaos in [her] head...to a silk of silence."
Publishers Weekly
Following last year's A Bright Red Scream by journalist Marilee Strong, Cutting by psychotherapist Steven Levenkron and Bodily Harm by self-injury treatment program directors Karen Conterio, Wendy Lader and Jennifer Kingson Bloom, this memoir is touted as the first personal account of compulsive self-mutilation. However, Kettlewell's story leaves more questions unaddressed than it answers. Having regularly cut her body with razor blades for most of her life, at age 36 she does not seem to have enough distance from her actions to fully understand them. Searching for a reason for her behavior, she writes about the distress and anxiety she felt during most of her childhood in rural Virginia, where her educated Northern parents were rarities. Unsure if her misery was justified, Kettlewell never talked about it, instead escaping by cutting her arms and legs, which allowed her to focus only on the present moment, the certainty of blood and pain. She still doesn't know whether she is entitled to the mental anguish she continues to suffer, and the bulk of the book, by detailing her misery, simply begs the question.We learn surprisingly few details about her life--a first marriage is summarized in a few sentences; her eating disorder in a few pages; her parents, second husband and child are never fully characterized. The text jumps repetitively and illogically between episodes, occasionally registering confusion at the level of the sentence structure ("Which one of us did I lie to protect?" is typical), and rife with maudlin metaphors and similes ("summer fell across my lap like a corpse"). Although Kettlewell's story shows courage in the writing, it will make most readers feel like voyeurs. (July) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
Elle - Francine Prose
[This] mesmeric memoir examines the obsession with cutting that is believed to afflict somewhere around two million Americans, nearly all of them female…[Kettlewell's] language soars and its intensity deepens whenever she is recalling the lost joys and the thrilling sensation of sharp steel against her tender skin.
Kirkus Reviews
A memoir of self-mutilation by a woman who grew up cutting herself with razors in an attempt to relieve the depression and anxiety she felt. Kettlewell first learned that cutting herself with a razor blade gave her a feeling of calm when she was 12. An insecure child growing up in an uncommunicative family, plagued by ever-present anxiety, she derived comfort from making small, deliberate cuts on her upper arms, legs, ears, and anyplace else on her body that could be hidden from the eyes of teachers, friends, and parents. Self-mutilation took her from the hurricane of her life into its eye: "All the chaos, the sound and fury, the uncertainty and confusion and despair—all of it evaporated in an instant, and I was for that moment grounded, coherent, whole." To a certain extent, her story is fascinating. Since various forms of self-mutilation, like eating disorders, plague a distressingly large segment of the population, it's at least sociologically relevant to read about one person's pathology. The shock of Kettlewell's story is not the fact that she used to cut herself—in this talk-show culture readers are not so easily surprised—but that she has chosen to tell her story at all, after successfully hiding her disorder for so many years. The same self-deprecation that caused the author to consider her depression out of proportion to her problems, combined, perhaps, with the urge to protect others who allowed her to keep her cutting secret, keeps her account oddly restrained, and sometimes gives it the flavor of a therapeutic exercise or a magazine article. When she writes that as a teenager she displayed "a public self whose job it was to distract attention from anyevidence of that other me," she seems unaware that the public self is still present in this book. Timely, and valuable for its insight into the cutter's psyche, but with a remove that prohibits empathy.
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