http://www.healthline.com/galecontent/milk-thistle
Description
Milk thistle (Silybum marianum or Cardus marianum) is a plant used for
treating liver disorders, breast-feeding problems, and other
illnesses. The active ingredient of the herb, silymarin, is found in
the ripe seeds of the plant. The milk thistle plant has a long stem,
green leaves with white spots, and pink to purple spiky flowered head
(which true to its name, resembles a thistle). The plant is native to
Europe and grows in the wild in the United States and South America.
Other common names for the plant include Mary thistle, St. Mary
thistle, Marian thistle, and lady's thistle.
The medicinal benefits of milk thistle have been valued for more than
2,000 years. Written records show that as early as the first century,
Romans were using the plant as a liver-protecting agent. The plant was
also frequently used throughout the Middle Ages, and it is in the
herbal literature of this period that the medicinal properties of milk
thistle seeds are first noted. Nicholas Culpepper, a British
herbalist, wrote about the value of the herb in treating diseases of
the liver and spleen in the late eighteenth century, and by the end of
the next century, records show that American physicians were also
prescribing the substance. Silymarin was first isolated from the milk
thistle plant by German scientists in the 1960s.
The leaves and stem of the milk thistle plant are edible, and can be
used in salads or eaten raw. The plant was cultivated as a vegetable
in Europe through the end of the nineteenth
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minutus@yahoogroups.com, medmidas wrote:
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