A few months ago I sliced my left index finger open with a pruning saw.
The cut was quite deep. Deep enough that after applying pressure for five or ten minutes, there was no lessening in the steady flow of blood out of the cut. It was clear that I had two choices, attempt herbal first aid or go to urgent care for some stitches. I chose the former.
Plants possess a wide and varied array of properties from anti-viral to mucilaginous. What I was looking for was a plant that was styptic, that would stop the bleeding.
The first one that came to mind was yarrow but I was knew that I had only a handful of dried leaves in my herbal pantry and that, in the late fall, there wasn’t any growing in my garden. I therefore asked my housemate to do a google search (lest I bleed all over my computer) for styptic plants. Among the plants on the list was horsetail.
Horsetail I had plenty of for it fills my garden every spring and is very easy to dry. I took my jar of powdered horsetail to the kitchen, held my finger out over the sink (the best place I could think of as blood was still flowing out of my finger) and sprinkled the dried horsetail directly into the open wound.
The bleeding stopped almost immediately. At first I thought that the plant material might be no different than gauze or cloth; that once it was saturated, the blood would simply seep through it. Instead it acted like a plug, a remarkable plant scab sealing up a cut too deep and wide for my own blood clotting mechanisms to respond adequately to.
I confess to experiencing some concern over the next few weeks as the deep green color of this horsetail scab became almost black and the scab itself remained firmly attached to my finger. Had I made a mistake? Had I, in fact, caused myself harm? Was the slight inflammation a sign that the finger was infected and that this infection had been caused by my actions?
Eventually however, the inflammation subsided and the scab began to break off in tiny pieces as the skin underneath healed, no longer needing the plant’s protection and assistance. I had not made a mistake. Indeed, the horsetail had not only stopped the bleeding and created a scab strong enough to take the place of stitches but also facilitated healing so complete as to leave just a faint trace of a scar.
Herbal magic.
Final note: During the day I protected the cut by covering it with a band-aid. At night I removed the band-aid to give the cut some air.
Thoughts and Such 