Sage in the Ancient Egypt
The oldest known records of the healing properties of sage take us back more than 4000 years.
Ancient Egyptians mostly used it as a remedy for infertility, but could also be used in the treatment of serious diseases and epidemics like the plague.
In the Pharaonic tombs, it was used as one of the main ingredients of the mixture of embalming so not the single one Egyptian Pharaoh could not move to the afterlife without these herbs.
Sage in Antics
Since sage is one of the oldest and most important medicinal plants, all ancient medical writers mentioned it in their writings.
At that time it was used as a cure for almost all diseases: lowering body temperature, a cure for headaches, treatment of the sore throat, mouth and respiratory tract, inflammation of the urinary tract and bladder. Also, it is used in the treatment of inflammatory bowel, stomach, liver, gall bladder and urinary tract, and many other diseases.
The ancient Romans considered it to be a holy plant and before picking it they would perform a certain ceremony. They used a special knife that was not made of iron not to react with sage. The collectors were to be put in clean clothes and have clean feet, and before they start they needed to offer the sacrifice in food.
Thanks to the Virgin Mary, was known as a plant that gives eternal life. According to the legend, the Virgin Mary hid with the small baby Jeseu in the sage bush during the flight to Egypt from Herod. Even today sage is one of the plants that is dedicated to Our Lady when celebrating the Day of Assumption.
Sage is one of those important plants that are believed to protect against magic, fire and hail, as well in easing the birth and conception. It was also stored in the freezer with the seed for planting and lay in a coffin with the dead. Sage is used for incense during religious ceremonies.
Sage throughout the Middle Ages
It is known that Charlemagne, one of the Europe’s greatest medieval rulers, respected the sage the most of all the medicinal plants. This is evident by its strict laws, or “capitulary”, in which the great ruler ordered all state farms (which were mostly monasteries)have to plant hundreds of various medicinal plants, and sage was the number one.
Sage is a medicinal plant that has an incredibly broad spectrum of activity, its strength perhaps best describes the axiom originated in Salerno that says:
“Why should a man die, whilst Sage grows in his garden?”
To help us understand the importance sage had in that period, we need to know that the sage is one of the few plants that can successfully replace antibiotic. As the antibiotic was invented only in 1928., the use of sage as a medicine in the past is often meant the difference between life and death.
Sages spectrum of activity is much greater than just being a good natural antibiotic. Therefore it does not surprise that the ancients appreciated sage in that extent that it had the status of a sacred plant. Sages benefits were enjoyed still in Middle Ages when it was used for prolongation of Life, chasing evil spirits away, in ceremonies and was a symbol of fertility, good health and long life.
In the healing properties of sage was convinced the herbalist John Gerard, who declared in his “Great Herball” from 1597. that this plant is “singularly good for the head and the revival of the nerves and memory“.
In 1688. Paullini from Augsburg wrote a book in Latin on more than 400 pages, which speaks only of sage and its impact.
The famous herbalist Sebastian Kneipp wrote “The one who has the garden, should plant sage because when you got that – it is natural pharmacy always at hand“.
Doctor Breuss, a famous doctor and writer of several books on the treatment of cancer and other diseases, says the sage is the type of tea one should in reasonable quantities drink all his life, primarily for preventive purposes because:
Sage is a medicinal plant that has an incredibly broad spectrum of activity. Modern scientific researches only confirms its multiple use purposes and justify the status it had during centuries.