Urban Fringe Pharmacy

Just watched the second ep. of Silver River’s programme and must say it was a huuuuge improvement on the first one – but still, of course, no mention or sign of a herbalist. I expect that’s the way it’s going to stay now. We herbalists are just a no-go zone as far as the makers of this show are concerned. In fact James Wong, who I must admit is starting to grow on me (better get some ointment!), said a couple of times how all this herbal knowledge has been lost, as though he is the one that has rediscovered it and is bringing it back! I mean, he must have got these recipes from somewhere – he can’t have made them all up on his own. My guess is that, rather than trawling through medieval manuscripts that he’s rescued from the bowels of the Kew Herbarium, he got them from a contemporary herbalist or two. So why no mention, pretty boy?

By the way, that was an odd way to use calendula. Usually its the resins you want in a calendula cream, which aren’t soluble in water, so you’d want to extract them in oil or high percentage ethanol. Even so, he still managed to get a result with the acne people. It was quite telling when the poor bloke with the facial acne said it had cleared up significantly when he had restricted his diet and done a colon cleanse – a herbalist would have made more of this as we tend to treat acne from the inside, by looking at diet and digestive function.

Looking forward to the next one……