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The Complete Herbal Tutor: The ideal companion for study and practice
Herbal medicines have been used for many centuries to treat illnesses and restore health, and today herbalism still remains the most widely-practiced form of medicine around the world.
Written by a leading Medical Herbalist, The Complete Herbal Tutor provides in-depth knowledge of the practice and theory of herbal medicine, including everything you need to know about its history, how it works, how to grow, gather and prepare herbs, and how to use them to create a herbal prescription.
The rigorously-researched and illustrated materia medica contains over 150 herbs, with clear explanations of their properties, active ingredients and the latest scientific developments on their uses.
There is also a clear explanation of how herbs can be used to treat each of the body's systems, with advice on using remedies for healing a range of specific conditions.
Written by a leading Medical Herbalist, The Complete Herbal Tutor provides in-depth knowledge of the practice and theory of herbal medicine, including everything you need to know about its history, how it works, how to grow, gather and prepare herbs, and how to use them to create a herbal prescription.
The rigorously-researched and illustrated materia medica contains over 150 herbs, with clear explanations of their properties, active ingredients and the latest scientific developments on their uses.
There is also a clear explanation of how herbs can be used to treat each of the body's systems, with advice on using remedies for healing a range of specific conditions.
256 pages, Paperback
First published August 23, 2010
92 people are currently reading
279 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 21, 2020
A wonderful reference guide, everything you would need in an herbalism guide. This is now the first place I go when I need to reference anything about herbal medicine.
December 22, 2019
This could have been a really interesting book but it is badly let down by the editing process... it is riddled with spelling mistakes, typos and poor sentence structure.
There is no further reading or references section either.
Pity. I had been really looking forward to this book.
There is no further reading or references section either.
Pity. I had been really looking forward to this book.
October 8, 2023
One of the most disappointing books I've ever bought! Completely fails to provide what the cover promises: 'The complete herbal tutor. The definitive guide to the principles and practices of herbal medicine'. Pretty big claim! With better editing and indexing it could have scraped a 4*. But isn't usable as it is, as learning or reference material.
The good: there is a nice section about different global herbal traditions. Much shorter sections cover how to do a herbal consultation, growing, harvesting and preparing herbs. There is a decent section about common ailments and how to treat them, divided up by body system. It's all useful information, if a bit mixed up in order. The bulk of the book is the herb list, with information about each herb covered. And it's ok coverage of the herbs. I don't know enough to say how comprehensive, but I'm happy to go with it.
But...
The bad: herbs are listed only alphabetically by binomial latin name. There is no index, and common names are only found on each herb's page. May I repeat, this is a reference book WITH NO INDEX!!! So you have to use the internet to look up the latin names of the herbs that you find, then you can find the right page to read about it. A serious aggravation, but I can forgive the lack of common names, because they are diverse and not precise.
What I can't forgive is the mismatch between the herb list, common ailments and pharmacy sections. I looked up hay fever (because I get it): fair enough, a big list of herbs to use. Then by accident I found nutmeg in the herb list, and it says 'it can be helpful in allergic rhinitis', not mentioned in the hayfever section. So which is correct? To nutmeg or not to nutmeg? Who knows. In 'preparations for internal use', it talks about teas and says some herbal therapeutic components are destroyed by high temperatures, so infuse them in cold water, including marshmallow and plantain. Look up marshmallow (after Googling the latin name) and the herb page makes no mention of infusions, either cold or hot, only external use or as a mouthwash.
Worst of all, the instructions on dosage are extremely vague, and scattered in different chapters. In 'the herbal pharmacy' it says 1/2 to one teaspoon of powder, in 'the herbal consultation' it says 1/4 to 1 tsp of powder, and also talks about varying the dose and duration for the type of patient (good to have in mind). And here it also casually mentions massively different dosage regimen for strong and weak herbs. 3x per day over months for weak herbs and long-term conditions, every 2 hours for strong herbs and an acute condition. Sounds excellent, except that nowhere else does it tell you which herbs are strong or weak!!!
Bearing this last point in mind, I can't see how it is possible to use this book to safely decide which herbs to use, and how much. Surely that makes this 'definitive guide' an active health risk? It gives the impression that you will know how to use herbs, but then leaves out the details you need to actually do it. OK so maybe you won't OD on herbs like a medicine, it is very different. Perhaps they are all edible in any amount, so it doesn't really matter how much you take? In which case, doesn't it all seem a bit fake and pseudo-doctory, to make a living for the herbalist profession? It all sounds so technical and scientific, medical language and latin names all over, then the actual prescribing details are so vague it seems like you can do whatever you like!
Honestly, this book turned me from a herbal remedy enthusiast into a sceptic about the whole thing! Every herb has such a long list of effects, and every ailment such a long list of herbs, I kinda wonder whether you can take any few at random? Or if a varied diet with different herbs and vegetables achieves the same thing? OK, perhaps that's going too far, but that's how it makes me feel.
If there was a comprehensive set of tables or indexes by herb, action and ailment then you could get an idea of what you expect herbs to do, compare them with what you have or would like to grow/collect, and make the best of it that you can. You could think 'OK, hayfever is inflammatory, so I'll focus on reducing inflammation'. But without that indexing, this guide is very little use. I thought about going through the whole book and making a big excel sheet that I could sort. Without that ridiculous effort, I think you would do just as well surfing a few websites about herbalism, and forget this book.
I do still believe in herbal medicine, that single or combinations of whole plants can be better than pharma grade purified single molecules for health and healing. And I will look into it again in the future, particularly when planning my garden. I'll look at the pages for a herb in this book, but won't trust it to learn herbalism, or as a single source for treating myself.
The good: there is a nice section about different global herbal traditions. Much shorter sections cover how to do a herbal consultation, growing, harvesting and preparing herbs. There is a decent section about common ailments and how to treat them, divided up by body system. It's all useful information, if a bit mixed up in order. The bulk of the book is the herb list, with information about each herb covered. And it's ok coverage of the herbs. I don't know enough to say how comprehensive, but I'm happy to go with it.
But...
The bad: herbs are listed only alphabetically by binomial latin name. There is no index, and common names are only found on each herb's page. May I repeat, this is a reference book WITH NO INDEX!!! So you have to use the internet to look up the latin names of the herbs that you find, then you can find the right page to read about it. A serious aggravation, but I can forgive the lack of common names, because they are diverse and not precise.
What I can't forgive is the mismatch between the herb list, common ailments and pharmacy sections. I looked up hay fever (because I get it): fair enough, a big list of herbs to use. Then by accident I found nutmeg in the herb list, and it says 'it can be helpful in allergic rhinitis', not mentioned in the hayfever section. So which is correct? To nutmeg or not to nutmeg? Who knows. In 'preparations for internal use', it talks about teas and says some herbal therapeutic components are destroyed by high temperatures, so infuse them in cold water, including marshmallow and plantain. Look up marshmallow (after Googling the latin name) and the herb page makes no mention of infusions, either cold or hot, only external use or as a mouthwash.
Worst of all, the instructions on dosage are extremely vague, and scattered in different chapters. In 'the herbal pharmacy' it says 1/2 to one teaspoon of powder, in 'the herbal consultation' it says 1/4 to 1 tsp of powder, and also talks about varying the dose and duration for the type of patient (good to have in mind). And here it also casually mentions massively different dosage regimen for strong and weak herbs. 3x per day over months for weak herbs and long-term conditions, every 2 hours for strong herbs and an acute condition. Sounds excellent, except that nowhere else does it tell you which herbs are strong or weak!!!
Bearing this last point in mind, I can't see how it is possible to use this book to safely decide which herbs to use, and how much. Surely that makes this 'definitive guide' an active health risk? It gives the impression that you will know how to use herbs, but then leaves out the details you need to actually do it. OK so maybe you won't OD on herbs like a medicine, it is very different. Perhaps they are all edible in any amount, so it doesn't really matter how much you take? In which case, doesn't it all seem a bit fake and pseudo-doctory, to make a living for the herbalist profession? It all sounds so technical and scientific, medical language and latin names all over, then the actual prescribing details are so vague it seems like you can do whatever you like!
Honestly, this book turned me from a herbal remedy enthusiast into a sceptic about the whole thing! Every herb has such a long list of effects, and every ailment such a long list of herbs, I kinda wonder whether you can take any few at random? Or if a varied diet with different herbs and vegetables achieves the same thing? OK, perhaps that's going too far, but that's how it makes me feel.
If there was a comprehensive set of tables or indexes by herb, action and ailment then you could get an idea of what you expect herbs to do, compare them with what you have or would like to grow/collect, and make the best of it that you can. You could think 'OK, hayfever is inflammatory, so I'll focus on reducing inflammation'. But without that indexing, this guide is very little use. I thought about going through the whole book and making a big excel sheet that I could sort. Without that ridiculous effort, I think you would do just as well surfing a few websites about herbalism, and forget this book.
I do still believe in herbal medicine, that single or combinations of whole plants can be better than pharma grade purified single molecules for health and healing. And I will look into it again in the future, particularly when planning my garden. I'll look at the pages for a herb in this book, but won't trust it to learn herbalism, or as a single source for treating myself.
July 13, 2024
I'm hovering between 2 and 3 stars. What information is here feels good enough, but there are a few things that make me seriously worry about using it. It's important context that my training is as a scientist and so I find that I need to understand how things work and have convincing evidence in order to practice something like herbalism (even just for myself). For example, I find myself looking up peer-reviewed scientific articles on specific herbs to find evidence that they do, in fact, work.
But with this book, first, it's the constant typos and inconsistent spelling, which makes me question how reliable the editing and review process was. Then, it's a section mentioning flower remedy practices that have been shown to be no more effective than placebo, see [1] and [2]. It's also a lot of medical or chemical terms for compounds without providing a deeper explanation of what they actually mean or how they act in the body - if I don't know how something works, I don't feel confident in acting based on it.
But truly, it's mostly that a book calling itself a complete herbal tutor has very very little information about actionable practice for complete beginners like myself. I do not feel I can gather enough reliable information here about specific conditions, treatments, dosages, etc to use. Other reviewers have pointed out this issue in more detail, so I encourage you to read more there. I'll just reiterate that the materia medica has no index. The reader is stuck with doing an alphabetical search for the latin name, if they know it, or to look elsewhere for what it might be so they can crossreference it in the book. It feels like a small thing, but I've learnt about herbs in plain english, so I don't immediately know that narrowleaf dock is plantago lanceolata!
Perhaps I just came in with bigger expectations than I should have, or the traditions of herbalism don't match how I perceive and experience the world & medical practices. For now, I will be using The Complete Herbal Tutor to cross-reference information with other books and increase my trust in the use of certain herbs.
[1] Bach flower remedies: a systematic review of randomised clinical trials at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20734...
[2] Bach Flower Remedies for psychological problems and pain: a systematic review at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
But with this book, first, it's the constant typos and inconsistent spelling, which makes me question how reliable the editing and review process was. Then, it's a section mentioning flower remedy practices that have been shown to be no more effective than placebo, see [1] and [2]. It's also a lot of medical or chemical terms for compounds without providing a deeper explanation of what they actually mean or how they act in the body - if I don't know how something works, I don't feel confident in acting based on it.
But truly, it's mostly that a book calling itself a complete herbal tutor has very very little information about actionable practice for complete beginners like myself. I do not feel I can gather enough reliable information here about specific conditions, treatments, dosages, etc to use. Other reviewers have pointed out this issue in more detail, so I encourage you to read more there. I'll just reiterate that the materia medica has no index. The reader is stuck with doing an alphabetical search for the latin name, if they know it, or to look elsewhere for what it might be so they can crossreference it in the book. It feels like a small thing, but I've learnt about herbs in plain english, so I don't immediately know that narrowleaf dock is plantago lanceolata!
Perhaps I just came in with bigger expectations than I should have, or the traditions of herbalism don't match how I perceive and experience the world & medical practices. For now, I will be using The Complete Herbal Tutor to cross-reference information with other books and increase my trust in the use of certain herbs.
[1] Bach flower remedies: a systematic review of randomised clinical trials at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20734...
[2] Bach Flower Remedies for psychological problems and pain: a systematic review at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
March 18, 2021
I really liked this book. It's one of the first I've read about herbs.
December 26, 2022
Great read!
I really enjoyed this book. As a herbalist , there is a lot of useful information. If you're a herbalist or looking for a book , add this to your list
I really enjoyed this book. As a herbalist , there is a lot of useful information. If you're a herbalist or looking for a book , add this to your list
March 10, 2017
A wonderful overview of working with herbs for yourself and how to initiate working with herbs for others.
May 24, 2016
- available in SG NLB 615.321 (Bt Merah)
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews