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| application in most of the conditions reported as successfully treated with echinacea is consistent with its use in modern herbal practices, and many of these applications have since been substantiated through modern pharmacological investigations. |
| Medical Use of Echinacea from 1852 |
| Echinacea was included in the United States Dispensatory under the old botanical name, Rudbeckia purpurea, for its treatment of syphilis. Similarly, it was described as an aromatic and carminative in the Transactions of the American Medical Association (AMA) in the same year.7 In 1909, the AMA excluded echinacea from its list of new and nonofficial remedies based on "a lack of scientific scrutiny" regarding its use. The AMA had little respect for the Eclectics and considered most of Eclectic medicine as inferior to the bleeding techniques and mineral-mercury compounds used by the AMA allopathic physicians. Similarly, echinacea was deemed to be an ineffective medicine in 1921 by researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.12 Although another researcher contested the author's conclusions,13 the Lloyd brothers decided to suspend all advertisements of echinacea for at least one year until they could survey physicians to determine echinacea's true worth. Hundreds of physicians, including Dr. S.M. Sherman, President of the Ohio State Board of Medical Examiners, responded in vigorous defense of echinacea. Universally, the physicians responded favorably to its effectiveness in all types of systemic infections, supporting the majority of the traditional uses ascribed to echinacea by the Eclectics.9 |
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