Matthew Alfs, RH (AHG)
Abstract
Clinical work with a number of sufferers of spondyloarthropathy (including psoriatic arthritis, juvenile spondyloarthropathy, and the arthritis accompanying inflammatory bowel disease) appears to confirm a little-known, folk-medicinal tradition that Cirsium vulgare (bull thistle) supports the health of joints, tendons, and ligaments in a most remarkable way.
Definitions
Bull thistle (Cirsium vulgare; formerly Cirsium lanceolatum), alternately known as “spear thistle,” is a biennial wild plant—often castigated as a “weed”—that grows in fields, meadows, pastures, and uncultivated land and usually in moist soil or not far from a body of water. In its first year, it appears as a basal rosette of easily-broken, bristly, irregularly-indented leaves, in which form it survives and even grows under the winter snows. By early summer of the second year, a branching stem appears, shooting the plant up to the height of a man. In this manifestation, it bears spiny-winged stems, spiny and alternate stem leaves, and reddish-purple flower heads situated on spiny bracts at the tips of the stem branches.