The Humble Cabbage – a Panacea

Used especially raw, cabbage has the value of a warehouse full of drugs. The humble cabbage (Brassica oleracea var. Capitata), which we so often cook in delicious meals, was once a wild, forest plant, domesticated thousands of years ago by the people living in the Mediterranean basin.

The Celts used it both as food and as medicine or magic ingredient. Cabbage was used in the same way by doctors in ancient Greece and Rome; here cabbage was considered a sort of panacea. In medieval times, it played an important role, among others, in discovering the New World, making lengthy journeys of great explorers possible that carried pickled cabbage in barrels aboard ships. Besides food, it was used as a medicine against scurvy, during the long ocean crossings.

Despite its age as a folk medicine, cabbage began to be explored by scientists only in the last 15 years, when more sophisticated laboratory equipment has allowed the identification, in the leaves, of certain substances with anti-tumor properties, exceptional antioxidants and anti-inflammatory. In addition, surveys conducted in the early 1990s have revealed an amazing thing: the populations for which the cabbage is the traditional food, being pickled or eaten raw in large quantities, enjoys an unusual immunity to a variety of forms of cancerous disease.

Some External Treatments with Cabbage leaves and juice:

• Small or medium severity burns - compresses are applied for 15 minutes, 2-3 per day, with fresh cabbage juice. It has anti-infective effect, helps healing faster, and prevents scars.
• Wounds hard to heal - daily cabbage juice compresses, hold for an hour, then leave the treated area to air dry for another hour. Studies show that through unknown mechanisms (it is assumed that cabbage contains substances that stimulate the growth of certain tissues), the wound healing process is faster, reduces the risk of infection, and the scars are much less visible.
• Infectious eczema, fungal infections - fresh cabbage leaves crushed with a hammer are applied on the affected area, and then apply a nylon top and fix with bandage or plaster. Allow time to act for 4 hours a day, and then leave the treated area exposed to air for at least 45 minutes. Do this until complete healing occurs. Sulfur compounds in the cabbage leaves have a powerful antiseptic action on bacteria and fungus.
• Skin cancer – apply on the affected area, every day for 4-6 hours, a poultice of cabbage leaves, as the one described above to treat eczema. Many people with basal cell and squamous cell epithelioma enjoyed the amazing effects of this simple treatment, which gives results when the most learned and invasive treatment methods fail.
• Sprain, dislocation - place on the affected area a well crushed cabbage leaf (with hammer) and tie with a swaddle. Apply for 4 hours a day. The first two days from the accident apply over the plaster a few bags of ice. Practice shows that due to this treatment, ligaments recovery time is shortened, pain is alleviated in many cases, and the synovial fluid bags that are formed are much smaller.
• Rheumatic pain - apply on the affected area, in the morning and possibly the evening, a well crushed cabbage leaf.  Hold at least two hours. Internally, consume 1-2 glasses of fresh cabbage juice daily, in cycles of 40 days, followed by 14 days of break. The external and internal treatment with fresh cabbage has a joint inflammatory effect, slows or stops the degenerative processes, helping to regain joint mobility.