Ledum palustre (Ledum) is commonly known as Marsh tea, wild rosemary. It is found in the Northern Hemisphere, especially Canada, the US, Scandinavia, and Ireland. Marsh tea is used traditionally in Scandinavia to cure lice. It was also used as a tea substitute.
In Homeopathy, the medicine is prepared from the whole plant. As the plant blooms, the tips of the leafy shoots are collected, dried, and steeped in alcohol.
Ledum Remedy is useful for cuts, grazes, puncture wounds, insect stings, and black eyes, and other eye injuries. It is used to prevent infection in open wounds. It is best suited to people with a tendency to be angry, dissatisfied, anxious, antisocial, or demented when ill. It is also given in rheumatic pains that arise in the feet and move upward, and stiff, painful joints that feel hot inside despite being cold to the touch.
Preparation of Remedy
The fresh plant is gathered, when flowering in summer and then dried and powdered to make the Homeopathic remedy.
Tincture of dried small twigs and leaves is collected after flowering begins. Tincture of the whole fresh plant is taken.
Prover: Dr. Hahnemann
General Information of Ledum palustre (Led-p)
- Source: Vegetable kingdom
- Parts used: The fresh plant in flower, dried and powdered.
- Botanical name: Ledum Palustre Linn
- Synonym: Ledum decum bers
Common names
- English: Marsh Labrador tea, northern Labrador tea Wild rosemary, Marsh Cistus
- French: Rosmarin Sauvage
- German: Wilder Rosemarin
Plant Classification
- Kingdom: Plantae – Plants
- Subkingdom: Tracheobionta – Vascular plants
- Superdivision: Spermatophyta – Seed plants
- Division: Magnoliophyta – Flowering plants
- Class: Magnoliopsida – Dicotyledons
- Subclass: Dilleniidae
- Order: Ericales
- Family: Ericaceae – Heath family
- Genus: Ledum L. – Labrador tea
- Species: Ledum palustre L. – marsh Labrador tea
Habitat: Found in Northern Europe, Asia, Newfoundland, Labrador to Alaska and Aleutian Island and especially in Canada. It is found in the US, Scandinavia, and Ireland.
Karl Linnaeus stated that Ledum Pal has been used by inhabitants of the northern parts of Europe most particularly of Sweden, as a popular remedy against whooping cough and bilious attack.
It gets its generic name from the Greek word” Ledos” which means wooly robe and refers to the wooly hairs on the underside of the plant’s leaves. Karl Linnaeus who was a Swedish botanist, first use Ledum pal medicinally for throat infections and cough.
Odhelius recommended in conditions like lepra, pemphigus, and other skin condition. The Swedes wash their oxen and swine with a decoction of it to kill lice and in Lapland, the branches are placed among the grain from the reputed power of the plant to keep off mice. It was formerly used in Switzerland to supply the place of hops in the manufacture of beer. The leaves are used by Canadians in the haunting excursion as a substitute for tea. The leaves contain a volatile oil that smells like camphor.
It is used to make herbal tea known as “Labrador tea”.
Marsh Labrador tea has traditionally been used as a gruit in brewing beer in the Middle Ages. Due to its strong fragrance, it has also formerly been used as a natural deterrent against clothes moths, also mosquitos, and bugs in general, in Scandinavia
Plant Description
It is an evergreen shrub, with a slender branched stem. It is a low shrub that grows up to 50cm with evergreen leaves which are 12-50 mm long and 2-12 mm broad. The flowers are small, with a five-lobed white corolla. They emit a strong smell to attract bees and other pollinating insect.
It grows in northern latitudes in Greenland, Canada, and Alaska in Europe in the northern and central parts and in Asia south to northern China, Korea, and Japan. It grows in peaty soils, shrubby areas, moss, and lichen tundra.
Chemical constituents:
All parts of plants contain poisonous terpenes. It affects the central nervous system.
If a person overdose on this plant it produces symptoms like dizziness, disturbance in movement, which is followed by spasms, nausea, and unconsciousness.
Sometimes the smell of the plant may cause headaches in some individuals.
Therapeutic Uses of Ledum palustre
Conditions for which this remedy is suitable:
- Ascites
- Asthma
- Bites
- Black-eye
- Boils
- Bruises
- Cracking in joints
- Deafness
- Disease of Joints
- Eczema
- Gout
- Inflammation of ear
- It can be given safely in inflammation of glands
- Mosquito bites
- Pain in feet
- Pain in hands
- Pimples on face
- Prickly heat
- Punctured wounds
- The rheumatic and arthritic disease especially affecting the smaller joints
- Roaring in ears, as from wind
- Stings of insects
- Tetanus
- Tinnitus (Ringing in ears)
- Tuberculosis
- When a patient has much uric acid in the urine
- Whitlow
Cause of Symptoms
- Abuse of alcohol
- From hair cutting
- From suppressed discharges
- From punctured wounds
- From bruises
- From mosquito bites and rat bites
- From stings of bees and wasps
- After getting wet
- After the suppression of coryza
- After the suppression of discharge from the ear
- After neglected pneumonia
- Sprains of ankle and feet
- Symptom mainly occur in the left shoulder, right hip joint
Suited to Patients
This remedy is suited to a person who has a pale complexion. They are delicate and always feel cold and chilly. They always abused by alcohol. A patient has a pale face. Various eruptions are seen on the face and forehead. This person has pain in the face at night.
It is indicated when a patient has sleepiness during the day. He has severe pain before midnight. Expectoration is worse after midnight.
It is given when a patient has rheumatic pains from below upwards.
It is given when a patient has sleepiness as from intoxication during the day.HE feels sleeplessness at night with restlessness. He talks in sleep with moaning and groaning. It is given when a patient has an uneasy dream with a dream of business.
It is given in certain kinds of injury like when stepping on tracks and from punctured with needles. These kinds of wounds bleed scantily but have pain, puffiness, and coldness of the part. It also cures when stepping on a nail and it pierces the sole of the foot or the heel. It also cures the condition when a patient has a splinter in the palm. It cures the condition when after punctured wounds the part becomes cold and then pale, paralyzed, and mottled.
It can be given when a patient has tetanus from punctured wounds in palms or soles or in other parts.
It also cures nerve is injured by a punctured and infection occurs. The nerve supply of that part is affected. Pain shoots along the nerve. Because of this muscles that are supplied by that nerve dwindle and the part withers. This condition is better by cold application.
It cures complete ptosis which is seen after injury. It can be given when a patient has profuse suppuration with pus discharge. The patient has agglutination at night.
It can be given when a patient has noises in-ear as from ringing of the bell, or from a story of wind. It can be given when a patient has to whiz in the ears. It can be given when a patient has a hardness of hearing especially on the right side with a feeling as if an ear was obstructed by cotton. This condition is seen after cutting hair and after the suppression of coryza or ear discharge.
It is given in sore throat with fine stinging pain when not swallowing, with sensation as from a lump in the throat.
It can be given when a patient has nausea, sudden running of water from the mouth. It is given when a patient has a sensation of fullness in the upper part of the abdomen. This pain is seen every evening.
It can be given when a patient has diarrhea when stool mixed with mucus and blood. Sometimes a patient has stool mixed with only blood.
It can be given when patients have oppressed, rapid and painful breathing. patients feel suffocative with the arrest of the breathing. This condition is worse from motion and walking.
It cures spasmodic cough, from tickling in the larynx. The patient loses breath before cough and after cough with dizziness.
It can be given when a patient has pressure in the chest at the left edge of the sternum.
It is a very good remedy for rheumatic pains which go from below upward. Joints are swollen, tense, hot with stinging pains. It cures gout which begins in the lower limbs and ascends to upper joints. It cures gout in feet with gouty swellings on joints. It can be given when a patient has pain in the ankles as from a sprain or false step.
It can be given in fever where the chill stage predominates. The patient feels chilly with a sensation as if cold water is pouring over parts. Chilliness is felt in the morning and forenoon. A patient has no thirst when his body is hot and has sweating with itching. The warmth of the bed is intolerable. Sweat is seen at night.
It can be given in petechiae where a patient has purple spots over the body. This is seen for several weeks with weakness. It can cure urticaria which is white but gets red when rubbed with intense itching, stinging, and burning.
Symptoms Get Worse From
- By covering
- From scratching
- From standing
- From taking wine
- Joint complaints are worse from moving
- Rheumatic pains are worse from evening and night
- Skin complaints and rheumatic pains are worse from the warmth of the bed
- While walking
A patient gets worse from
- Bathing the head with very cold water
- By fanning
- From cold application
- From rest
- Ice cold water
Dosage of Ledum palustre
Take one pill or five drops of the remedy every 15 minutes to 4 hours (15 minutes for intense symptoms, 4 hours for milder ones). Once an improvement is noticed, stop dosing and repeat the remedy only if symptoms return. If there is no improvement at all by three doses, choose a different remedy or seek professional guidance.
Contraindications, Interactions, and Side-effects
- No known contraindication of Ledum pal.
- No known interaction of Ledum pal.
- No known side effects of Ledum pal.