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by Jim Duke
http://www.fathernaturesfarmacy.com
Saturday I dressed down my sister-in-law for leaving big pieces of bay leaf in that great stew she whipped up. I told her that there have been a few deaths due to pieces of bay leaf lodging in the gullet or esophagus. So you should steep it in your stews and remove, as, e.g. in a muslim tea bag, or you should completely pulverize it. Little could I have predicted then that two days later, I'd be suggesting that bayleaf be added to my pox-busting lentil soup.
At the risk of being redundant, like the radio and television newscasts, here's my revised recipe:
Per person: 1 half cup dry lentils (wash and strain off any stones; soak 1 hour)
1 heaping tsp dry fenugreek seed (wash and strain off any stones; soak 1 hour)(After my November tasting, I'm cutting back on the fenugreek, too bitter for my occidental palate)
1/2 cup chopped onions, chives, leeks, ramps, scallions, mix and match as available)
dash of curry (or powdered turmeric),
one whole bay leaf
1/2 clove garlic;
simmer two hours, or until tender, salt and pepper and paprika to taste
It'll keep the neighbors away if not their germs. But when it comes to stray anthrax, bubonic plague, chicken pox, fox pox, and smallpox, it might help, at least by complementing the Cipro, if you can get it. But remember; there have been no clinical trials comparing Cipro with lentil soup, or just plain garlic or bayleaf. I'd bet more on the garlic or bayleaf than the lentil soup, which dilutes the garlic and the bayleaf. But lentil soup, if pleasant, can boost your immune system (if you'll take your mind off antraciphobia), while providing hundreds of gentle antiseptic phytochemicals. I won't name all the side effects of Cipro. But it will soon lead to Cipro resistant anthrax is we are not careful. That won't happen with the garlic or the bayleaf.
Like the authorities, I am grabbing for straws, but a veterinary pathologist, Jonathan Byron, had suggested several reasons why feverfew might be good for anthrax. And I knew that feverfew and bayleaf shared many rather uncommon biologically active compounds. Jonathan noted that antibiotics can check the common types of the anthrax bacteria, if timely applied. With the pulmonary form, antibiotics are often not administered until a fatal dose of the exotoxin is circulating in the blood. A substance that blocks the action of the toxin would be a valuable adjunct to antibiotics. While the mechanism of anthrax exotoxin activity is not fully understood, four molecular activities could be important in pathogenesis; secretion of IL-1, the secretion of TNF-a, the activity of tyrosine kinase, and the activity of phospholipase A2. He concluded that feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium), as a strong inhibitor of all these activities, theoretically might reduce anthrax mortality. After contemplating Byron's hypothesis, I would certainly take feverfew and bayleaf, both of which have long been consumed in herbal teas, Here's Byron's Running Commentary. Most abstracts I saw either mentioned parthenolide, or said that a crude extract of feverfew was more potent than its purified constituents. [I suspect that would also be true of the bayleaf. JAD] I attach some medline abstracts. I planted a bayleaf tree in my yard years ago and use it for cooking; I knew it was loaded with phytochemicals but didn't know it had parthenolides. I couldn't find anything on temperature sensitivity of the anthrax bacteria and fever. The pop/historical literature mentions garlic as active against both anthrax and Yersinia pestis, the bubonic plague bacteria - but somewhat anecdotal.
There was nothing on garlic/anthrax in Medline, but garlic has widespread action against gram-positive bacteria, including Bacillus subtilis and B. cereus (same genus). Garlic might be a prophylactic suitable for large populations (unlike other antibiotics, which would be indicated only on exposure or diagnosis). Other promising phytochemicals include quercetin (best represented in onion), epicatechin )in green tea etc.) , genistein (in legumes) and antioxidants in general, as there is a cascade of reactive oxygen intermediates at the final steps associated with cell death. It seems that macrophages are the weak spot in the body [[[(But extracts of Bupleurum may stimulate macrophage activity. Arabinogalactan from Echinacea stimulates macrophages to produce interferon-beta, interleukin 1 (IL-1), interleukin-6 (IL-6), Interleukin-10 (IL-10), tumor necrosis factor (TNF-alpha) as well as stimulating T-cell production, in vitro. Myrrh resin kills germs and stimulates macrophages (JAD based on my HDR)]]] - other tissues are relatively resistant to the toxin. I really got excited when I saw Bacillus among the organisms arrested or killed by bayleaf, its oils or its extracts: among bacteria, Bacillus subtilis, Escherichia coli, Hafnea alnei, Micrococcus luteus, Proteus vulgaris, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Salmonella enteridis, and Staphylococcus aureus. Among fungi: Aspergillus niger, A. terreus, Candida albicans, Fusarium moniliforme, Phytophthora capsici, Rhizoctonia solani, and Sclerotinia sclerotiorum. Leaf extracts reduce aflatoxin production by Aspergillus parasiticus and botulitoxin from Clostridium botulinum. (Hager's Handbook, 1998). Charalambous (1994) adds another Bacillus for the antiseptic bayleaf, e.g. the dried leaves and its essential oils inhibit Bacillus cereus, Candida albicans, Clostridium botulinum, Escherichia coli, Mycobacterium smegmatis, Proteus vulgaris, Staphylococcus aureus, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, etc (SPI). Peirce, in the American Pharmaceutical Association's guide to natural medicines, states "Testtube studies indicate that bay extracts kill a number of disease-causing bacteria, fungi and viruses. . .Some commercial German antiviral products contain bay extracts." And the bay might repel some germ-laden cockroaches "According to a 1981 study, bay contains cockroach-repelling compounds, including cineole (up to 50 percent in the volatile oil). (Peirce,1999). Rinzler adds that fleas (incidentally carriers of some plagues) and moths are also repelled.
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