26-03-2026, 11:36 PM
(This post was last modified: 26-03-2026, 11:45 PM by Bluetoes101.)
On the point Rene highlighted, I think plants (less so just "flowers") had a very big part of cures for various things (as they still do) but the knowledge of why was not really known (to our standard of "known"). As an example, I told people when I was younger that if they got stung while going through the overgrowth to our fishing spot, they should rub a "doc leaf" on it and showed them what a doc leaf was. This is what my grandparents had shown me, and it worked for me. As with me, my friends nettle stings stopped being sore and itchy right away when a doc leaf was rubbed on the stung area.
Google says "scientific evidence is weak, and its effectiveness is likely due to the cooling sap or a placebo effect."
They (and I..) didn't know any of this then, just "doc leaves cure nettle stings", knowledge passed down or tried and verified by experience. I don't think they had a clue about any chemical mixtures by our understanding, just this thing sooths this, and that thing makes red marks less red, and so this thing I mixed up from both makes "sore and red" better.
Google says "scientific evidence is weak, and its effectiveness is likely due to the cooling sap or a placebo effect."
They (and I..) didn't know any of this then, just "doc leaves cure nettle stings", knowledge passed down or tried and verified by experience. I don't think they had a clue about any chemical mixtures by our understanding, just this thing sooths this, and that thing makes red marks less red, and so this thing I mixed up from both makes "sore and red" better.