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What is it?

The leaves anc flowers of Yarrow. The name ‘millefolium’ translates to ‘a thousand leaves’ and refers to the way Yarrow’s leaves multiply as they divide. The flowers form dense clusters and have a strong, distinctive and pleasant odour.

How has it been used?

The Latin name; Achillea, relates to this herb being dedicated to the Greek hero Achilles. In legend the centaur Chiron showed herbal secrets to his pupils and taught Achilles how to use Yarrow to stop bad wounds from bleeding out in his soldiers.

Legends aside, it is true that for millennia Yarrow has been regarded as a pre-eminent herb for helping in the healing of wounds. The structure of the leaves make Yarrow perfect to help form a bandage and it has natural antibiotic properties in its volatile oils.

Yarrow is also a herb that is renowned for improving circulation, most immediately obvious when the body is trying to mount a fever. Taking a cup of yarrow tea at this time should produce profuse sweating, in effect helping the body easily do what it has been trying to achieve.

Yarrow also has historical recommendations for diarrhea, gall-bladder colic and stomach cramps and has been traditionally to improve appetite and settle the digestive system

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Personal experiences

Fortunately these days you don’t get people lurching into your herbal medicine practice with blood pouring out of them from their battles. However we do still get wounded on the inside. Many people get serious problems in their gut, anything from tiny tears that cause the 'leaky gut syndrome' all the way up to full blown ulcers and I have seen how Yarrow can be profoundly healing in such cases. 

Yarrow combines perfectly with Calendula, Comfrey leaf and Plantain for internal healing and with Elder flower to help the body resolve a bad flu or fever.

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Excerpt from Felter & Lloyd's Kings Dispensatory from 1898

Yarrow possesses astringent properties and is tonic, alterative and diuretic, in infusion. Its use in chronic diseases of the urinary apparatus, is especially recommended by Prof. J. M. Scudder. It exerts a tonic influence upon the venous system, as well as upon mucous membranes. It has been efficacious in sore throat, hemoptysis, hematuria and other forms of hemorrhage where the bleeding is small in amount, incontinence of urine, diabetes, hemorrhoids with bloody or mucoid discharges, and dysentery; also in amenorrhoea, flatulency and spasmodic diseases, and in the form of injection in leucorrhoea with relaxed vaginal walls. Prof. T. V. Morrow made much use of an infusion of this herb in dysentery. Given in half-drachm doses of the saturated tincture, or 20 drop doses of specific achillea, it will be found one of our best agents for the relief of menorrhagia.

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