The True Story Of Witches Brew

As parents of “late talkers”, most of us don’t care how their child starts talking as long as they get there, but perhaps you should.

Years this and it was working does that mean that the doctor is wrong and all these people are correct?ago I learned the story of witches brew from my Aunt Leona who had her Ph.D. in nursing and education and used to teach nursing at LIU.  I believe all will benefit from hearing and learning from this fascinating true story which is pulled from the literature together with what I learned from my Aunt from the stories she shared with me before she died.

In 1753, William Withering, a physician in rural England, went from town to town with his bag of medications visiting his sick patients. One day, while he was changing horses in a town, a man approached him and told him of his wife’s illness. Dr. Withering went to see the woman. She had dropsy, which again today would be called congestive heart failure. Unfortunately, as there was no cure for flopsy at that time and it was fatal, Dr. Withering thought the case was hopeless and sent the old woman on her way.

A few weeks later, this same man approached Withering as he passed through town and told him of the amazing recovery his wife had made. Withering went to see the woman and asked what she had taken. She told him it was a “witches brew” that was prescribed for her. She was very excited to share that she was unwilling to give up after her dire diagnosis, s0 she sought out what was alternative treatment at that time and learned about witches brew from the gypsies.  There were chants and rituals and all kinds of things in the witches brew.  She followed along with the chants, the rituals and drank the brew, and got better.

Dr. Withering spent the rest of his career not only hunting down the gypsy to learn what was exactly was in the witches brew or “magic potion” but rigorously going through each ingredient one by one to find out what exactly helped his patient.    He asked to see the ingredients and this is where, as in all aspects of science and medicine, serendipity can play a big role. Besides being a physician, Withering was trained as a botanist. He recognized one of the close to 20 ingredients on the list as a plant that was very prominent in that area of England, and it turns out, in many other places in the world. That ingredient in her potion was purple foxglove (Digitalis purpurea). He then performed a clinical trial of sorts, testing different doses and formulations on 163 patients. After that day,   Back then they didn’t have clinical trials so it was trial and error.  After trying various preparations of the foxglove in varying dosages in hundreds of patients he concluded that it was of a great benefit as long as it was carefully titrated to avoid the toxicities of overly slow pulse and vomiting.   He found out the eye of newt and the rest of the ingredients along with the chants and rituals were a complete waste, the vital ingredient was foxglove.

“In the year 1775, my opinion was asked concerning a family receipt for the cure of the dropsy. I was told that it had long been kept a secret by an old woman in Shropshire who had sometimes made cures after the more regular practitioners had failed. I was informed also, that the effects produced were violent vomiting and purging; for the diuretic effects seemed to have been overlooked. This medicine was composed of twenty or more different herbs; but it was not very difficult for one conversant in these subjects, to perceive, that the active herb could be no other than the Foxglove.”

When it comes to integrative or complementary therapies to traditional speech and occupational therapy, the main reason why it’s best to start one thing at a time is so that you know for sure what is worth keeping and what is not. If you start a bunch of supplements at the same time and see progress you may want to continue all of them. However, even outside of potential waste of time and money, any drug or supplement can have a side effect. In addition, if a child is speech impaired today there is a good chance it’s multifaceted.   If your child is diagnosed with apraxia, for example, there is a good chance that speech isn’t the end of the issues, so we need to know how best to continue to reach out and help them overcome and succeed as they grow.

Since as of 2017 science and medicine there is still so little research on apraxia, it’s up to us as those that care for children with communication impairments like apraxia to be the “experts” for our children along with the professionals that help our children.

For close to 20 years now in my nonprofit, many do well with just therapy and fish oils, and on this page, I document how I found the EFA formula that works for most.   While we need clinical validation to prove what we already know about the therapeutic results of fish oils (even alone) I’ve also discovered we need to explore the healing power of plants including those used in Ayurveda such as Turmeric, Amalaki, Haritaki, Gymnema, Green Tea, Guggul, Cocoa, Cinnamon, and Cayenne Pepper.  Using one thing at a time you can see if it’s an individual ingredient that is making the difference or in the case of Ayurvedic botanicals a synergistic blending of specific types of plants.

“When one looks at the modern pharmacopeia, there are many examples of drugs that were derived from plants or other components of the natural world. In fact, well over 40% of the drugs we currently use have their origins in the natural world. Many of these have been used for centuries and still have important uses today.”

Human nature proves in this group that when parents do go ahead and proceed with a host of treatments all at once, that they credit the most expensive and difficult to their child’s surges.   In fact, I found it’s again the opposite  In our group we’ve seen the best results with the (relatively) cheapest dietary approaches.  Expensive doesn’t make it better and from many of the strategies explored today for communication impairments including stem cell, Hbot, CBD oil, a kitchen counter full of supplements have potential side effects that may be more complex than the child’s initial diagnosis.

The main lesson that Dr. Withering’s work has taught us is just because you give your child fish oils hidden in a Twinkie and you see great results doesn’t mean you have to (or should) be feeding your child Twinkies. Correlation doesn’t mean causation.

Unless otherwise advised by a doctor, it’s best to start one thing at a time.  Give at least a month in between adding new therapies.  Also, it’s good to stop and start that one thing you think is working (or not) and start again so you’ll know for sure it’s worth doing or not.  And now you know the answer to this question