Echinacea Tincture is suitable for internal immunity boosting and external antimicrobial action. This is one you can add to your daily beverages and also apply topically to cleanse around wound site.

Ingredients: Echinacea root is best but leaves, stems, and flowers are all valuable for extracting immunostimulant and antimicrobial agents. Teas and tisanes are possible – as many beneficial polysaccharide constituents of echinacea are easily extracted into water – but for this purpose we need an alcohol base (500mls of vodka or brandy) to maximise the caffeic acids, hyaluronic acid and volatile oils remedial to wounds and beneficial to antibody efficacy. Fresh root have more potency but you can get dried in most health shops and just supplement with your own grown flower tops and some foliage.

The slow (menstruum) method: Take a ½ cup of fresh, washed and chopped root and place inside a jar or glass container that will hold it and the capacity of 500mls of vodka, snugly. Seal with lid. Shake and label (with date). Leave to sit for 5 weeks – at room temperature, shaking occasionally. Thereafter, strain roots from liquid and store in dark bottle for long term storage – several years.

The quicker (blitz) method: Same ingredients blitzed in a blender – to as fine as it can get – jar up and place in sunny window, to be shaken daily for one week. Sit for a second week, and then strain away solids and bottle up.

Dosage and duration: internally, 10 – 25 drops of the tincture, three times daily for five day intervals with a short caseation period before second round. Echinacea requires a break in usage to be fully effective for longer treatments. So a two day break is good between the five day ingestion period – week days on, weekends off. A month’s treatment will make sure that phagocytosis is strengthened and accelerated – wherein our inherent macrophages and other antibodies actively eliminate invading microbes – as well as delivering overall immunity boosting.