Week 9: Vulneraries Flashcards
What is a vulnerary?
An agent that helps tissue heal
- Used for lacerations, abrasions, ulcers, burns, or otherwise inflamed and disrupted tissue
- Many (but not all) can be used externally or internally
Inflammatory Phase
After hemostasis is achieved, blood vessels dilate, call junctions become more permeable as macrophages infiltrate the area.
Exudate increases , edema, heat, erythema and pain increase
If this process is exuberant, maceration of the tissue occurs
Proliferation Phase
Granulation tissue fills in the wound
Made up of collagen and extracellular matrix
Angiogenesis – new blood vessels form in the granulation tissue to supply nutrients and oxygen to the fibroblasts and other growing tissue.
Epithelialization – resurfacing of the wound
Maturation Phase
Remodeling of collagen from type III to type I
Blood vessels regress
Actions related to Vulnerary Herbs
Increased cell proliferation, angiogenesis, collagen formation, rate of epithelialization, contraction of wounds, tensile strength, and control of inflammation
Calendula officinalis
Family: Asteraceae
Energetics: drying
Constituents: terpene glycosides, flavonol glycosides, saponins, triterpene alcohols, sterols, carotenes, xanthophylls, polysaccharides, tannins
Part Used: flower
Calendula officinalis
Actions
vulnerary, anti-inflammatory, diuretic, antiseptic
Calendula officinalis
Indications and CIs
Indications: Lacerations, abrasions, excoriations, ulcers, eczema, rashes
Specific Indications and Uses.—Locally, to wounds and injuries to prevent suppuration and promote rapid healing. Internally, to aid local action, and in chronic suppuration, capillary engorgement, varicose veins, old ulcers, splenic and hepatic congestion. King’s American Dispensatory, 1898, Harvey Wickes Felter, M.D., and John Uri Lloyd, Phr. M., Ph. D.
Contraindications: pregnancy (internal)
Caution: Allergy to Asteraceae family
Anti-inflammatory activity of flower extract of Calendula officinalis Linn. and its possible mechanism of action.
The results showed that potent anti-inflammatory response of C. officinalis extract may be mediated by the inhibition of proinflammatory cytokines and Cox-2 and subsequent prostaglandin synthesis.
What is thought to be the most potent anti-inflammatory constituent in Calendula officinalis?
Faradiol
Echinacea spp.
Family: Asteraceae
Part Used: root and rhizome, whole plant
Energetics: Cooling, Drying, Stimulating
Constituents: Caffeic acid ester – echinacoside, polysaccharides, alkylamides, volitile oil, echinolone, caffeic acid. E. purpurea root contains traces of pyrrolizidine alkaloids.
Echinacea spp.
Actions
Actions: immunomodulator, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, stimulates leukocytes, inhibits hyaluronidase, enhances phagocytosis, lymphagogue, vulnerary
Echinacea spp.
Indications and CIs
Indications: Infection, sepsis, pharyngitis, snake bites, ulcers
Contraindications: some practitioners avoid use with inflammatory autoimmune diseases.
Echinacea angustifolia
It stimulates retrograde metabolism, or tissue waste, more markedly than any other single remedy known. It influences the entire lymphatic system, and the condition of the blood suggests that the patient has been taking stimulants. Its influence upon the capillary circulation is not comparable with that of any other known remedy, for while it is a stimulant to the circulation in these vessels, it also seems to endow them with a certain amount of recuperative power or formative force by which it is constituted, not only a general stimulant and tonic to the circulation, but also peculiarly so, to local inflammations of a debilitating character, as when administering liver and iron remedies in abundance. Sallow, pallid and dingy conditions of the skin of the face quickly disappear, and the rosy hue of health is apparent. Anemic conditions improve with increased nerve tone. There are but few subjective symptoms from large doses of this agent. It is apparently non-toxic, and to any unpleasant extent non-irritant. The agent certainly has a marked effect upon the nervous system, but its specific influence upon the central organs has not yet been determined.
The American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy, 1919, Finley Ellingwood, M.D.
Alcohol extract of Echinacea pallida reverses stress-delayed wound healing in mice.
Healing of open skin wounds begins with an inflammatory response. Restraint stress has been well documented to delay wound closure, partially via glucocorticoid (GC)-mediated immunosuppression of inflammation. Echinacea, a popular herbal immunomodulator, is purported to be beneficial for wound healing. To test the hypothesis, an alcohol extract of E. pallida was administrated orally to mice for 3 days prior to, and 4 days post wounding with a dermal biopsy on the dorsum. Concomitantly, mice were exposed to 3 cycles of daily restraint stress prior to, and 4 cycles post wounding. Echinacea accelerated wound closure in the stressed mice, but had no apparent wound healing effect for the non-stressed mice when compared to their respective controls. To test if the positive healing effect is through modulation of GC release, plasma corticosterone concentrations were measured in unwounded mice treated with restraint stress and the herbal extract for 4 days. Plasma GC in restraint stressed mice gavaged with Echinacea was not different from mice treated with restraint only, but was increased compared to the vehicle control. This data suggests that the improved wound healing effect of Echinacea in stressed mice is not mediated through modulation of GC signaling.
Centella asiatica (Gotu Kola)
Family: Apiaceae
Part Used: whole plant
Energetics: Cooling
Constituents: triterpenoid saponins: asiaticoside, brahmoside; brahmic acid, centelose, carotenoids, madecassoside
