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What is it?

The leaves of the famous mint. Getting up close to the leaf of a Peppermint plant and smelling it is probably the best way to know it's what you have. Mint leaves have similar, smooth looking characteristics but their smells are different enough to place them apart.

How has it been used?

Peppermint has many historical and current indications.

Dioscorides, a famous Greek physician who lived over 2000 years ago wrote that a spray of Peppermint worn on his cloak raised his depressed spirits.

Archaeological evidence would suggest that Peppermint has been known and used by people for at least ten thousand years.

Peppermint has been used since ancient times to assist a wide variety of digestive disorders where a mildly sedative and anti-cramping remedy is required. Such conditions include; colitis, travel sickness, excess gas, colic, nausea, vomiting and poor appetite.

Peppermint also has a traditional use in fever treatments where its cooling effects can be very soothing in the ‘hot’ stage of a fever when the patient feels restless, agitated and overheated (notably distinct from when they feel cold and shivery)

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Personal experiences

Peppermint has a paradoxical nature. It seems both cooling and warming at the same time. Mostly I use Peppermint as a part of formulas where I want to provide a gentle and pleasant tasting digestive remedy.

Peppermint is helpful used in a cream for sore muscles and poor circulation. I also use Peppermint oil in an enteric coated capsule (meaning it only gets digested after it passes through the stomach) for excess gas and cramping in the intestine.

We make a ‘balm tea’ with Comfrey leaf, Peppermint and Lemon Balm that is healing to a damaged gut whilst also being delicious.

Peppermint combines perfectly with Licorice root and Ginger root for many functional digestive disorders and discomforts.

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Excerpt from Felter & Lloyd's Kings Dispensatory from 1898.

Peppermint is a powerful diffusive stimulant, antispasmodic, carminative and stomachic. It undoubtedly possesses marked antiseptic properties. Used in the treatment of gastrodynia, flatulent colic, hysteria, spasms or cramps of the stomach, to allay the griping of cathartics, to check nausea and vomiting, and to disguise the unpleasant taste of other medicines. Equal parts of the essence and alcohol, used by atomization, relieve the cough of bronchitis and pneumonia. The fresh herb, bruised and applied over the bowels, will often allay sick stomach, and is efficient in cholera infantum. The same kind of application sometimes relieves headache.

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