Historical Uses Of Milk Thistle

           Milk Thistle has been a revered herb for at least 2000 years. While it has a history of being noted as a potential food source, and it is evident within ancient Christian symbolism, perhaps it's most significant impact upon humanity has been medicinally.

       The botanical name for Milk Thistle is Silybum marianum. It is within it's botanical name that perhaps we get our first clue as to the reverance the ancients paid to this plant. For the name 'marianum' is derived from an ancient legend, and according to this legend; the leaf viens had turned white after it had been touched by a drop of the Virgin Mary's breast milk. In Germany the plant is often depicted in religous symbols with the Holy Virgin.

       It is known that Dioscorides, a physician who served with the Roman army during the first century, gave the name Silybum to a number of edible thistles. Perhaps one of the earliest medicinal reference's to Milk Thistle in connection to the liver comes from a first century Roman physician/naturalist, Pliny the Elder (A.D. 23-79). He wrote that honey mixed with the juice of the plant is excellent for "carrying off bile." Additionally, he noted Milk Thistle's potential as a vegetable.

     There is more evidence to indicate that the herb was well known in Europe 1000 years later. In the first known herbal written by a woman Physica of Hildegarde of Bingen, Hildegarde discusses the uses of the leaves, roots, and whole plant of Milk Thistle which she called "vehedistel" or Venus Thistle. Her manuscript was written in 1155 and finally published in 1533. She was a music composer, theologian, and writer. Truly a "renaissance woman" who preceeded the age itself.

      Still in use by the 18th century Culpepper (1787 ed.) noted that Milk Thistle is effective "to open the obstructions of the liver and spleen, and thereby is good against the jaundice." He additionally writes, "The seed and distilled water are held powerful to all the purposes aforesaid, and besides, it is often applied both inwardly to drink, and outwardly with cloths or spunges [sic.], to the region of the liver, to cool the distemper thereof..."  

     The investigations of traditional herbal remedies by the German scientist H. Schultz in 1929 also determined that the famous 18th century German physician, Rasdemacher, had endorsed the use of Milk Thistle preparatations for a wide variety of ailments concerning the liver. Finally, by the 1930's there was yet again clinical interest in Milk Thistle.

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