Thyme

In the early days of the Herbal Extract Company (late 1980s) one of the best supporters of our founder, Lyndsay Shume, was the matriarch of herbal medicine, the late Dorothy Hall (dec. March 24, 2012). She believed in the Herbal Extract Company herbs and felt she got the best results with them. She told all her students to use our herbs and to this day many of her students are still our best customers. In her eponymous book, Hall says the fragrant culinary herb thyme is powerfully protective and therapeutic. She calls it one of the “big three” of herbal medicine along with sage (Salvia officinalis) and parsley (Petroselinum crispum), adding that “there can never be a sharp cut-off point between culinary herbs and medicinal herbs.”

Thyme is a potent herbal medicine for different kinds of infection, including bacterial and fungal, but especially those in the respiratory and digestive systems. Hall says thyme is almost equal to garlic (Allium sativum) as an antiseptic herb and as a carminative, for dyspepsia and sluggish digestion, it ranks with chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla). She used thyme to fight off streptococcal throat and lung and kidney infections. “Many tonsillectomies may have been avoided by the use of thyme as a tea, as a gargle, or in an internal mixture,” she said. In the respiratory tract thyme’s expectorant, antispasmodic and antiseptic properties make it useful for any respiratory conditions characterised by excess levels of mucus, phlegm or catarrh including influenza, colds, bronchitis, asthma, whooping cough and sinusitis.

So many beneficial effects have been attributed to time that French herbalist and author Fabrice Bardeau proclaimed thyme as “an indispensable plant, which should be consumed to conserve health. Furthermore, if one could replace ones’ morning cup of coffee with an infusion of thyme, you would quickly appreciate its positive effects: animation of spirit, sensation, lightness in the stomach, absence of morning cough, and its euphoriant and tonic effect.”

References

Hall D. Dorothy Hall’s Herbal Medicine. Sydney:Lothian. 1988. p. 289

Hall D. Dorothy Hall’s Herbal Medicine. Sydney:Lothian. 1988. p. 58, 289

Quave, C.L. Quave Research Group Website. Version 11.0, April 2015. Thymus vulgaris L., Lamiaceae by Carly McCabe [Internet]; 2015 [accessed Nov 7 2022]. Available from https://etnobotanica.us/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Plant-Monograph-Book-4.2013.pdf