Title : The rare endemic wild plant Valeriana Celtica L.: From common remedy to nerve elixir
Abstract:
This endemic root, which is confined to an extremely small area in the Alpine heights on the boarders of Carinthia, Styria and Salzburg, found its way from Central Europe to the cities of the Roman Empire, Alexandria and the “Orient” in ancient times. Its ambivalent, bitter scent is characteristic and stimulated its medical application by the local population. It was used to treat almost all ailments, with the exception of the heart, when boiled in wine or milk. For centuries it played a central role in the materia medica of both indigenous and academic healing. It was only when, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the pharmaceutical trade began to rely on cultivated herbs, and Valeriana celtica, being a rare plant, could not be cultivated, that it gradually disappeared from the lists of known and authorised drugs used by apothecaries. However, it had another career in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when it was processed into nerve elixirs. Every era invents its own diseases. Industrialisation and acceleration created ailments for which the root could be used. This new application was again based on the traditional wisdom and knowledge of the rural population. Valeriana celtica was now processed into remedies that were administered beyond the confines of academic medicine. The elixirs were available in their own shops, which operated under less stringent conditions, but were used in everyday life as they had been for centuries. But what had changed the situation? For a root that could not be reproduced en masse, medical proof was not worthwhile. Studies on its medical efficacy are still pending. This article traces the history of the changing use of this rare root and its relation to local traditional knowledge.
