Plants that Heal Wounds

Aisha Moon
Nov 16, 2024
5 min read

How Do Some Wild Plants Heal Wounds?

Before modern medicine became prevalent and all-encompassing, cuts and wounds were treated by people using the crushed leaves or leaf juices of certain plants. These plants heal wounds owing to their ability to absorb the fluids that ooze out of wounds and their chemical composition that helps to clot blood temporarily at the face of the wound. Many of these traditionally used medicinal plants have Vitamin K in them, which produces the proteins that help blood clotting.

Wooly Lamb’s Ear

Wooly Lamb’s Ear is a wound-healing plant, the leaves of which were used for bandaging wounds and also treating them. The juice of this leaf can clot blood. Not only fresh cuts and wounds but more prolonged sores and inflammations were also healed using this plant. Wooly Lamb’s Ear is also an edible plant used in salads and teas. Its antibacterial properties are what make it a medicine even against skin-infecting bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus.

It was Anglo-Saxons who originally used this plant for its medicinal value. In the medieval period, the leaves of Wooly Lamb’s Ear were extensively used in bandaging. The leaves are quite similar to a lamb’s ear, hence the name. They are super soft and hairy, and the plants have light purple flowers. These features make it a good garden plant, too. Originally, this plant was from Central Asia.

Wooly Lamb’s Ear

Goat Weed

Ageratum Conyzoides is the scientific name of Goat Weed. It is also known as Appa Grass. The juice taken by crushing the leaves of this shrub can quickly heal small cuts and wounds. The villagers in tropical and subtropical regions have used the leaves for centuries to heal wounds as it has quite strong anti-inflammatory properties. The traditional medicinal use of this plant also spans a wide variety of diseases and their treatment.

Goat Weed

Siam Weed

The other common names of Siam Weed are Rouge Plant, Christmas Bush and Devil Weed. The leaves of this plant are used just the same way as that of Goat Weed. It is considered an invasive species in Africa and Asia. In South America, this plant, because of its strong aroma, has been used as incense. The plant is native to the American continent. In India, during the spread of the disease, Chikungunya, the folk medicine of Siam leaves boiled in water, was used as bathing water for pain relief to the joints and was found very effective.

Plantain

The wound-healing properties of Plantain were found and used by Native Americans. Plantain also is an edible leaf. The skin area stung by a bee or insect was rubbed with crushed plantain leaves for quick relief. The leaf juice was commonly used in poultices. The leaf sap decreases inflammation and relieves pain, too.

Rosary Pea

Rosary Pea or Jequirity Bean is known by the scientific name Abrus Precatorius. The leaves of this creeper have the magical ability to reduce inflammatory swelling. In South India’s folk medicine, the swollen part of the body is smeared with oil, and then Rosary Pea leaves are spread upon the entire swollen area, covering it completely. In 10-20 minutes, the leaves can be seen shrinking and falling off, and by then, the swelling would have been reduced considerably.

Jatropha

A less-known plant that has been traditionally used specifically for thorn removal is Jatropha. As many children in tropical countries usually would walk barefoot, many of them would have every alternate day a thorn pierced into their feet and stuck in the shallow flesh. The white sap of Jatropha is poured into the area where the thorn is stuck, and this will loosen up the skin tissues surrounding the thorn, thereby making it easier to pull it out.

Tamarind Leaf

Tamarind leaves are spread out on the area surrounding a sore or an inflammation, using some oil to reduce swelling. Bathing in lukewarm water in which Tamarind leaves are boiled helps remove fatigue from fever and cold.

Indian Pennywort

Asiatic Pennywort is another name for the herb Indian Pennywort. It grows in swampy areas, especially in the vicinity of paddy fields in the tropics. A well-known addition to salads, the medicinal properties of this plant are not as popular as the culinary ones. The crushed leaves of this plant are applied to cure wounds in folk medicine.

Turmeric

Turmeric is another proven natural remedy for wounds and cuts. The roots of turmeric are dried and powdered and used as a food additive in Asian countries. This powder is applied to wounds with miraculous healing effects. In South India, many temple priests in a spiritual frenzy are known to inflict self-wounds, mostly on their foreheads, using their sacred swords. Soon after, the helper who accompanies the priest would cover the wound with turmeric powder so that the wound is healed in a couple of days. Curcumin is the substance in Turmeric that gives it a yellow colour, and it also is anti-inflammatory.

Tree Peony

Tree Peony is a garden shrub known for its lovely pink and white flowers, but little known is its wound-healing properties. Peonies inhibit the chemicals that cause pain and swelling. Usually, the roots are used as medicine for wounds. Generally, Peony is a folk medicine for all kinds of skin diseases.

Tea Tree

For minor cuts, applying Tea Tree oil is an effective home remedy. As Tea Tree oil is a strong essential oil, the best way to apply it is to mix 2-3 drops of it in one teaspoon of coconut oil and use. White blood cells are fundamental in wound healing, and Tea Tree oil catalyses the activity of these cells.

Purple Waffle

Also known as Red Ivy, this plant has the vernacular name exactly, meaning wound healer in many languages of the world. The crushed leaves are applied directly to minor cuts and wounds.

Purple Waffle

Black Jack

Black Jack is widely used in Africa to clot blood in wounds and close them. With elegant white and yellow flowers, this plant grows in almost all tropical and subtropical climates.

Wound Healing in the Ancient World

In ancient Egypt, honey and the juice of Pomegranate were commonly used in wound healing. Honey was the major medicine used to heal wounds in the Medieval era as well. Myrrh and Olive resin were two other ancient remedies for healing military wounds. The earliest probable evidence found of a wound in any human species is the fossil of a skull, aged 5 million years, and the skull belonged to a member of the proto-human species Australopithecus africanus. In other words, the recorded history of wounds dates back to 5 million years.

Guido Majno, a pathologist and wound historian, observed that all kinds of materials had been stuffed into a wound by ancient humans to avoid bleeding out and to help blood clot, and naturally, many of these cases ended up with the wound getting worse due to new infections caused by the materials stuffed into it. However, such trial and error would have been the very process that helped humans identify which material or plant had wound-healing properties. The birth of a folk medicine system, as we can see, was troublesome and long-drawn yet time-tested, too.

In the Cuneiform tablets of Mesopotamia, there is mention of butter being applied to a cleaned wound. Mustard, pine gum, daisy, date palm juice, fig juice, and some other plant extracts were used by Akkadians to heal injuries. Clay tablets have been found from the Assyrian period, that is, the first millennium BC, where different herbs are listed.

Despite the great advancement and achievements of modern medicine, the tradition of home remedies lives on. As long as it is alive, the plants with wound-healing properties will find a place in our gardens and homesteads and will come in handy as an immediate relief for minor injuries and sores.