Inventing a herbal tradition: The complex roots of the current popularity of Epilobium angustifolium in Eastern Europe

Ethnopharmacological relevance: Currently various scientific and popular sources provide a wide spectrum of ethnopharmacological information on many plants, yet the sources of that information, as well as the information itself, are often not clear, potentially resulting in the erroneous use of plants among lay people or even in official medicine. Our field studies in seven countries on the Eastern edge of Europe have revealed an unusual increase in the medicinal use of Epilobium angustifolium L., especially in Estonia, where the majority of uses were specifically related to “men's problems”. The aim of the current work is: to understand the recent and sudden increase in the interest in the use of E. angustifolium in Estonia; to evaluate the extent of documented traditional use of E. angustifolium among sources of knowledge considered traditional; to track different sources describing (or attributed as describing) the benefits of E. angustifolium; and to detect direct and indirect influences of the written sources on the currently documented local uses of E. angustifolium on the Eastern edge of Europe. Materials and methods: In this study we used a variety of methods: semi-structured interviews with 599 people in 7 countries, historical data analysis and historical ethnopharmacological source analysis. We researched historical and archival sources, and academic and popular literature published on the medicinal use of E. angustifolium in the regions of our field sites as well as internationally, paying close attention to the literature that might have directly or indirectly contributed to the popularity of E. angustifolium at different times in history. Results: Our results show that the sudden and recent popularity in the medical use of E. angustifolium in Estonia has been caused by local popular authors with academic medical backgrounds, relying simultaneously on “western” and Russian sources. While Russian sources have propagated (partially unpublished) results from the 1930s, “western” sources are scientific insights derived from the popularization of other Epilobium species by Austrian herbalist Maria Treben. The information Treben disseminated could have been originated from a previous peak in popularity of E. angustifolium in USA in the second half of the 19th century, caused in turn by misinterpretation of ancient herbals. The traditional uses of E. angustifolium were related to wounds and skin diseases, fever, pain (headache, sore throat, childbirth), and abdominal-related problems (constipation, stomach ache) and intestinal bleeding. Few more uses were based on the similarity principle. The main theme, however, is the fragmentation of use and its lack of consistency apart from wounds and skin diseases. Conclusions: Historical ethnobotanical investigations could help to avoid creating repeating waves of popularity of plants that have already been tried for certain diseases and later abandoned as not fully effective. There is, of course, a chance that E. angustifolium could also finally be proven to be clinically safe and cost-effective for treating benign prostatic hyperplasia, but this has not yet happened despite recent intensive research. Documented traditional use would suggest investigating the dermatological, intestinal anti-hemorrhagic and pain inhibiting properties of this plant, if any

Sacred and Profane: Tabooing in Russian Magical Manuscripts of the 17th–18th Centuries (Incantations and Herbals)

Linguistic taboos (euphemisms, omissions, and other) are an essential part of Slavic verbal and written culture. In this article, we analyze cryptography as a form of tabooing in the magical texts of the grassroots manuscript tradition of the 17th and 18th centuries (handwritten incantations and herbals). Our main objective is trying to see a system behind separate examples and define which kinds of texts are usually tabooed in incantations and herbals, their topics, and messages. We have managed to find out that the function of keeping secrecy is not relevant for the magical tradition; rather, encryption was used to emphasize the elements that are of special importance. In the book of incantations called the Olonets Codex, dating back to the 17th century, ciphering was used for the names and titles of sacred and demonological characters, antagonists, descriptions of certain rituals, closing phrases for the incantations (amen, “key”), etc. We hypothesize that the encryption is used in the Olonets Codex as a means of retaining the magical strength of all the texts in the manuscripts, protecting from hostile beings, sacralizing where necessary, tabooing what was considered sinful for religious reasons, accentuating the main meanings of the incantations, etc. In the herbals, cryptography is basically used for tabooing of “sinful” or trappy topics (love magic, magic used against courts and authorities, some contexts concerning sorcery, jinx, and “secret” knowledge), and in the texts that had to bear sacral meaning (incantations and prayers)