Wintergreen

Wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbent)

      Today, I was experimenting to see if I could create a wintergreen salve for aches and pains. I followed a recipe found in, Herbal Remedies, by Non Shaw and Christopher Hedley. I took Calendula ointment that I had made from infused oil and put it in a water bath. Then I ground the wintergreen in a coffee grinder and used 1 part herb to 4 parts salve. The mixture was left to simmer for one hour and when it was finished I strained it though a metal sieve lined with muslin. The strained liquid was placed back in the water bath and I grated some extra beeswax into it to make it firmer. When the wintergreen salve was cooking I thought that it smelled exactly like the Friar’s Balsam that we used to use for colds when I was a kid. However, when it was bottled I couldn’t detect much of an odour at all. In the end the wintergreen salve looked a darker green than the Calendula salve was.

I found the following information about wintergreen on this website: http://www.drugs.com/npc/wintergreen.html . It commented:

“American Indians reportedly used wintergreen for treating back pain, rheumatism, fever, headaches, and sore throats. The plant and its oil have been used in traditional medicine as an anodyne, analgesic, carminative, astringent, and topical rubefacient (counter-irritant).”