[.ca] Prescription For Herbal Healing (ISBN 0895298694)

The Herbal Twin Has Arrived!!:
We all loved the book "Prescription for Nutritional Healing" by James F. Balch and Phyllis A. Balch, and now comes its long awaited twin; The same winning format, the same width of knowledge, and this time - the best herbs to treat (almost) every ailment. Besides an overview of the principles of herbal healing, the first part of the book describes a long list of herbs that are mentioned throughout the book, the scientific evidence of their benefit, and various considerations for use, alone and/or with other herbs. However, this part is missing a listing of active constituents (future edition?). The second part excells in bringing an alphabetical listing of various health conditions and summarizing, in a clear-cut table, the herbs that can be used, the doses, some ready formulas, and a short comment on action. I loved this format in the first book, and find myself praising this format in the present book. Need to treat an ailment? - just open the right page, and the table of beneficial herbs is right in front of your eyes. The story goes on - "Herbs to Avoid", general "Recommendations" and "Considerations" - all written by a super-expert in the field. Amazon found a very strange way to show us the contents of a book ("look inside") but never exposed "real" pages. Just give a customer a chance to look at a page from the second part of this book and he will know what this book is all about. In the third part I found the information I needed to prepare my own herbal extracts. The tips are invaluable and the various techniques for herbal healing are very well discussed. Ms. Balch made our life much easier and healthier by introducing two superb books where in a glance one can match nutritional healing with herbal healing for a wide array of common health problems. It's time to go one further step - to move both books to the CD format...

One Complaint:
I have one complaint about this book, and that is that the index is not as good as the rest of the book. I've spent a lot of time looking for things that are in the book but not in the index. A reference book should have a better index. In spite of my complaint, I'm glad I bought this book, and I use it frequently.

Great book:
This book is the one the nearby herbal store uses for a reference guide. That is where I first seen it. This book covers almost everything from alfalfa to yarrow. It starts by listing the herbs first, then lists health problems and the herbs recommended. Sometimes gets a little wordy. But otherwise a great book, I am adding it to my collection.

Disappointed:
I guess I was spoiled with "Prescription for Nutritional Healing" which I rated "5". I was expecting "Prescription for Herbal Healing" to be at least as good. I am in my last year at the Canadian School of Natural Nutrition, and I bought "Herbal Healing" as a reference tool. While leafing through, I came across "Infertility". It mentions that spermicidal lubricants should be avoided since they will destroy sperm, which makes perfect sense. However, it goes on to mention that a good alternative would be baby oil or a light vegetable oil. I was shocked to say the least. Not only is baby oil a petroleum based product, it is highly scented with added fragrance. In fact, oil of any kind should never be used as a vaginal lubricant. Only water soluble, unscented products designed to be used in such a delicate area should ever be considered. This alone has caused me to question the credibility of the authors on the subject of herbs. Maybe they should stick to vitamins and minerals as their specialty.