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by Subhuti Dharmananda

Hermann-Josef Weidinger (* als Heinrich Anton Weidinger 16. Jänner 1918 in Riegersburg; † 21. März 2004 in Waidhofen an der Thaya) war Prämonstratenser-Chorherr, Missionar und in Österreich als „Kräuterpfarrer Weidinger“ bekannt.

Die Bürgerschule besuchte er jenseits der Grenze in Frain (Vranov) an der Thaya im damals deutschsprachigen Teil Südmährens. Mit 18 Jahren fasste Weidinger, der sich bereits als Bub gerne im Kräutergarten seines Onkels aufgehalten hatte, den Entschluss, Missionar zu werden. Nach der Matura an der Aufbauschule in Horn entschloss er sich zum Dienst in der Mission und trat in den Orden der Salesianer Don Boscos ein. Nach kurzer Vorbereitung und Sprachschulung in Unterwaltersdorf und in Italien kam er 1938 in die Republik China, wo er Philosophie und Theologie studierte und das Buchdruckerhandwerk erlernte.

Im damals noch portugiesischen Macao gründete er einen Verlag. Als Übersetzer bekannter Werke ins Chinesische machte er sich einen Namen. Nach medizinischen Kursen lernte Weidinger als Assistent eines Militärarztes die chinesische Naturheilkunde kennen. Read More: > HERE <

Kräuter-Pfarrer Künzle – Mit seinen pflanzlichen Natur-Arzneien konnte Kräuter-Pfarrer Künzle viele Kranke heilen – oft auch dann noch, wenn die Schulmedizin bereits am Ende ihres Lateins angelangt war. Kein Wunder also, dass ihn nicht nur Menschen aus seiner Heimat aufsuchten, sondern auch Adelige aus aller Herren Länder, wie der König von Serbien, der Maharadscha von Idore aus Indien und viele andere mehr.

Als Kräuter-Pfarrer Künzle auch Zustimmung von Kaiser Franz-Josef erhielt, fand er sogar Anerkennung bei jenem Ärztekollegium, das seine Arbeit verbieten wollte. Mit seinem enormen medizinischen Wissen und seiner herausragenden Intelligenz (8 Sprachen) konnte er schliesslich alle davon überzeugen, dass viele Gesundheitsprobleme mit seinen pflanzlichen Präparaten erfolgreich behandelt werden können. Er gilt somit als der Wegbereiter der modernen Phyto-Therapie (Pflanzenheilkunde) und war ein Vorreiter der Ganzheitsmedizin. …und heute sind seine phyto-therapeutischen (pflanzlichen) Produkte aktueller denn je. Mehr lesen:  www.kp-kuenzle.ch

Swiss Priest Johann Künzle: > Major European Herbs < by Subhuti Dharmananda, Ph.D

Kräuterpfarrer Hermann-Josef Weidinger wurde 1918 in Riegersburg geboren, mit 18 Jahren entschloss er sich, Missionar zu werden. Er trat in das Missionshaus Unterwaltersdorf ein, maturierte 1938 und fuhr noch im selben Jahr nach China. Anfangs arbeitete er im Pressebereich. Nach medizinischen Kursen lernte Weidinger als Assistent eines Militärarztes die chinesische Naturheilkunde kennen. Eine Malaria-Erkrankung beendete jedoch abrupt die Tätigkeit im Reich der Mitte. Weidinger trat in das Prämonstratenserstift Geras ein und wurde Pfarrer in Harth. Nach dem Tod des damaligen Kräuterpfarrers Rauscher im Jahr 1979 übernahm Weidinger die Leitung des in Karlstein ansässigen Vereins der Freunde der Heilkräuter.

Heilkraft der Pflanzen seit Jahrhunderten bekannt – Schon Hildegard von Bingen beschäftigte sich mit der Heilkraft der Pflanzen. Die Heilkraft der Pflanzen war im Volk bekannt, in den Klöstern aber wurden sie sowohl intensiviert, als auch kultiviert.

Hermann-Josef Weidinger, better known as Herbal Priest Weidinger, who died on Sunday, March 21, 2004, at the age of 86. He had studied European herbalism in his youth and traveled to China as a missionary in 1938, where he learned also of their herbal system; he returned from China in 1953. He continued his work as an herbalist and proponent of healthy lifestyle, writing some 40 books on natural health care. Until recently, he and 37 assistants prepared and prescribed herbal remedies in Karlstein, Austria, at the Paracelsus House Nature Cure Center.

Tracing the history of European herbology – In all cultures, the origins of herbal medicine are lost in the mists of time. There is little doubt that humans used herbs for healing well before anything could be written about them. At some point in an advancing culture, written documents become the repository for knowledge that had been passed on from one generation to the next. Among the earliest such documents are those describing the religious beliefs of the people and those describing the medical practices.

Many authorities recognize Hippocrates (460-375 B.C.) as the „father of medicine“ for the European tradition. He had little interest in the use of herbs. The primary focus of the Hippocratic School of Medicine was diet and nutrition and a reliance on calm, moderate living. These are the same foundations that herbalists such as Künzle put forth as the basis for healing .

A summation of the Hippocratic approach was presented by Erwin Ackerknecht, in his 1968 book (revised from the 1955 edition) A Short History of Medicine, as relayed below. Naturopathic physicians today will recognize the opening description as the one adopted in the definition of their profession. Reference is then made to the conditions of apepsis and pepsis, referring, basically, to inability to properly digest (apepsis) or ability to properly digest (pepsis), which is likened to cooking of the food in the stomach, relying on an innate heat.

To students of Asian medicine, this is a near perfect echo of teachings from India and China about the source of disease and the resolution of disease via invigorating this digestive fire and promoting the healthy function of the digestive system.

The great philosopher Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) was the son of a medical man and a medical man himself, but his main influence on the development of European medicine was through his student, Theophrastus (380-287 B.C.), called the „father of botany.“ He was the first known author in Europe (and the rest of the world) of a classification system for plants with accompanying comments about their medicinal properties. He described about 450 different medicinal plants. However, this text has not come down through history, and is only noted in later commentaries.

The first document of herbal medicine to attain the status of a medical classic in the European tradition was by Dioscorides (40-90 A.D.). Known as Materia Medica, a fifth century reproduction still exists, complete with botanical illustrations that were apparently added to the original text (carefully preserved in Vienna). > HISTORIC ISLAMIC PLANT MEDICINE <

Dioscorides was a surgeon accompanying the armies of Nero. He traveled far, collected much information, and gained considerable medical experience as he went. His work was later adopted by Muslim physicians, leading to the development of Unani medicine (Greek medicine as retained in the Islamic tradition).

Contributions of Herbalist Priests in Central Europe – Father Sebastian Kneipp (1821-1897) of Bavaria, is recognized as one of the leading contributors to the modern field of natural healing. He advocated exposure to nature: sunlight, baths, fresh air, and dips in cold water, eating natural foods (rather than processed foods), and having a positive mental attitude, as a means of recovering health, and this is an origin of the „spa“ movement in central Europe that remains vibrant today. He became convinced of the efficacy of this approach when, at the age of about 21, he suffered from tuberculosis and cured himself by these methods-particularly the „water therapy“-which he was said to have found described in the Vatican archives, though it may have been from another church library. After becoming a priest, he began making recommendations for sick parishioners.

Kneipp had a strong influence on the development of naturopathy and herbal therapeutics in America. In 1892, one of those who sought out Father Kneipp’s help was Benedict Lust, a German who had immigrated to America, but then returned home after contracting tuberculosis. He was cured using Kneipp’s method of water therapy (along with healthy diet and herbs) and became convinced of its general usefulness. He returned to America to promote „Kneippism,“ starting schools, societies, magazines, health food stores, and sanitariums. Lust utilized the name naturopathy to describe the basic approach, and founded the American Naturopathic Association and the American School of Naturopathy.

Künzle had learned from Kneipp as well as from other priest-herbalists (such as Father Ludwig, mentioned in his autobiography) and his work stimulated considerable interest in herbalism in Europe during the first half of the 20th century.

In turn, Kneipp and Künzle both influenced the Austrian Hermann-Josef Weidinger (1918-2004). He had studied European herbalism in his youth and traveled to China as a missionary, where he lived from 1938 to 1953, and learned of their herbal system from a Buddhist monk and also while working with an army doctor.

He returned from China due to illness and continued his work as an herbalist, writing numerous books on natural health care. Until recently, he and 37 assistants prepared and prescribed herbal remedies in Karlstein, Austria, at the Paracelsus House Nature Cure Center.

FULL ARTICLE: > Tracing the history of European herbology <

Kräuterpfarrer Weidinger in China

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Khawass al-Ashjar, Arabic version of De Materia ­Medica.

www.islamicmedicine.org/natural.htm

ISLAMIC PLANT MEDICINE

Medicine in medieval Islam

INT. MEVLANA FOUNDATION

Int. Society for the History of Islamic Medicine

Pedanius Dioscorides (Greek: Πεδάνιος Διοσκορίδης; ca. 40-90) was an ancient Greek physician, pharmacologist and botanist from Anazarbus, Cilicia, Asia Minor, who practised in ancient Rome during the time of Nero. He had the opportunity to travel extensively seeking medicinal substances from all over the Roman and Greek world. Dioscorides wrote a five-volume book in his native Greek, Περί ὕλης ἰατρικής (De Materia Medica in the Latin translation; Regarding Medical Matters) that is a precursor to all modern pharmacopeias, and is one of the most influential herbal books in history. In fact, it remained in use until about CE 1600. Unlike many classical authors, his works were not „rediscovered“ in the Renaissance, because his book never left circulation. The De Materia Medica was often reproduced in manuscript form through the centuries, often with commentary on Dioscorides‘ work and with minor additions from Arabic and Indian sources, though there were some advancements in herbal science among the Arabic additions. The most important manuscripts survive today in Mount Athos monasteries. DE MATERIA MEDICA is important not just for the history of herbal science: it also gives us a knowledge of the herbs and remedies used by the Greeks, Romans, and other cultures of antiquity. The work also records the Dacian and Thracian names for some plants, which otherwise would have been lost. The work presents about 600 plants in all, although the descriptions are obscurely phrased. Duane Isely notes that „numerous individuals from the Middle Ages on have struggled with the identity of the recondite kinds“, and characterizes most of the identifications of Gunther et al. as „educated guesses“. Read More: > HERE <

Medicine was the first of the Greek sciences to be studied in depth by Islamic scholars. During the ninth century and into the tenth, the spiritual head of Islam, Harun al-Rashid (of Arabian Nights fame), and his son, al-Ma’mun, sent embassies to collect Greek and other scientific works from throughout the region. These were taken to the “House of Wisdom,” where the entire body of Greek medical texts, including all the works of Galen, Oribasius, Paul of Aegina, Hippocrates, and Dios­corides, were translated into Arabic—manuscripts so important that one of the translators was paid for each translation by its equivalent weight in gold.

Arab pharmacopoeia came from so many sources—as far afield as China, Southeast Asia, the Himalayas, southern India, and West Africa—it was enormous. In his second volume of the Canon of Medicine, Ibn Sina (a.d. 980–1037, also known as Avicenna) describes 235 remedies, of which 97 still appear in the official British Pharmacopoeia, as well as 760 medicinal plants and their uses. Ibn Sina also laid out the rules that are the basis of clinical trials today.

Sesam Oil and tamarind not only used in Ayurveda: Like most medieval medicine, the Islamic viewpoint was an outgrowth of Galen’s Humoral Theory and focused on the need to balance the humors, or bodily fluids.

Cathartics, purges, and laxatives were considered essential to this goal. The most popular herb—an enduring favorite today—was senna, a low bush with small yellow flowers, greenish yellow leaves, and fat seed pods. The leaves have a distinctive smell, and the infusion made from them has a nauseatingly sweet taste; taken alone, the infusion does indeed produce nausea. The Arabs calmed both taste and effect by adding aromatic spices.

The Arabs also introduced manna and tamarind as safe, mild, and reliable laxatives. Scammony, a climbing plant of the morning glory family that has thick roots with medicinal value, was a controversial herb in Europe, where some practitioners declared its violent laxative action unsafe to use under any conditions, while others said they could not function without it. Islamic pharmacists responded by devising a reliable preparation to temper the herb’s ferocity but retain its potency. They did this by first boiling the scammony root inside a fruit called a quince; the scammony was then discarded and the quince pulp mixed with the soothing, gooey seeds of psyllium. The preparation was known as “diagridium.”

Formulation developed into an art involving many steps and ingredients. Ar-Razi, Islamic medicine’s greatest clinician and most original thinker, combined bitter almonds with an ounce of raisin rob, or pulp, to treat kidney stones. For the same ailment, a clinician named Haly Abbas recommended boiling jujubes, fruits of sebesten, white maude, and seeds of smallage, fennel, caltrop, and thyme.

In addition to compounds, the Arabs valued hundreds of simple herbal remedies. They used sesame oil to relieve coughs and soften rawness of the throat. Juice from the stalk and leaves of the licorice plant was considered good for respiratory problems, swollen glands, and clearing the throat, whereas the root was used to treat foot ulcers and wounds.

Myrrh, primarily known in the West as a gift from one of the Three Wise Men, was highly valued for its medicinal properties as an astringent and was also used to treat dyspepsia, chronic bronchitis, leukorrhea, and as a topical application in gum disease. In fact, it is a primary ingredient in many commercial mouthwashes today.

An Ancient Tradtion survived: Arab pharmacology was not only extensive but also the strongest empirically based biological science. Ibn Sina’s Canon laid out the basic rules of clinical drug trials, ones that are still followed today: A drug being tested must be pure, and it must work on all cases of the disease. Testing in humans, with careful notation of the drug’s effectiveness under different conditions, was the necessary final step. Observation and experimentation were the sole determinants of the value (or lack of value) of a potential treatment.

Not surprisingly, when Europe began to stir from a thousand years of intellectual slumber, it turned to the Islamic world. It was no coincidence that Salerno, Europe’s first great medical center, was close to Arab Sicily, or that the first outstanding medical university, Montpellier, was located in southern France, near the Andalusian border.

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