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Chaste Tree Berry - Vitex agnus-castus
The Monk's Protector
Introduction
Herbal medicines are the precursors of many common drugs prescribed in clinical practice
in modern western industrial countries today. Further, herbs and herbal products are still
an important part of the primary health care systems in many parts of the world--in
countries such as China and Mexico, and throughout South America and Africa. Common use
and interest in herbal medicine is also growing in some industrial countries such as the
United States and Germany. Throughout recorded history, some of the same herbal medicines
commonly used today were recognized and prescribed by ancient doctors--handed down from
unknown antiquity.
One such plant was called agnos by the ancient Greeks, over 2,000 years ago; then agnus
castus throughout the middle ages and renaissance. Today one can still buy these small
spicy fruits in European herb markets by the same name.
The ancients ascribed many magical powers to this plant, and it was considered an
important healing herb among the common people during the following centuries. Throughout
Europe, where herbal medicine has more of an unbroken tradition than it does in the United
States, agnus castus or "vitex" as it is usually called here, is often used to
help relieve the symptoms associated with female hormonal imbalances such as the
depression, cramps, mood swings, water retention and weight gain associated with the
menstrual cycle (PMS-associated symptoms). In European herbalism and medical practice,
Vitex extracts are also prescribed for uterine fibroid cysts and to help alleviate the
unpleasant symptoms of menopause.
The lack of modern controlled studies is surprising, given the herb's extremely long
history of use as a hormone balancing remedy and a legendary remedy to help subdue excited
libidos among those who would remain chaste. Identification and standardization of active
constituents still await interested researchers. This work may be soon forthcoming given
the current re-awakening of interest in this ancient herb.
Botany and Natural Occurrence of Chaste Tree
Vitex, a genus from the Verbenaceae, consists of about 60 species in the
tropics and subtropics in both hemispheres. Vitex agnus castus is in the vervain
family (Verbenaceae) and is a well-known aromatic shrub to small tree growing in the
Mediterranean area to western Asia. The plant has long spires of pale lilac or rose
colored flowers and small gray-brown, hard fruits, which is the part used medicinally. It
is often found growing next to streams, and it loves water, but this author has seen it
growing in very dry, rocky spots on the Greek islands.
Vitex usually grows from three to nine feet tall, but under cultivation can develop to 20
feet tall. The bark is white-felted, the opposite leaves are palmately compound with 5-7
leaflets. The flowers are in interrupted spikes and the corolla is two-lipped from 6-9 mm
long. The fruit is a small hard reddish-black drupe with a persistent calyx.
Because agnus castus is native to Greece and Italy, it was well-known by the ancients. The
name Vitex comes from the Romans, perhaps because it was considered related to the
willow, Salix--both because of its leaves and its flexible branches, used like
willow in wickerwork. Agnus-castus comes from the Greek agnos castus, chaste,
because the plant has since those times been associated with chastity. Pliny, the Greek
natural historian (AD 23-79) wrote that the Greeks called it lygos, or agnos
because the "Athenian matrons, preserving their chastity at the Thesmophoria,
strew their beds with its leaves."
Linnaeus described the plant as Vitex agnus castus in Species Plantarum
(1753), naming De Plantis Epitome of Mattioli (1586), Royen's Florae Leydensis
Prodromus (1740), Gronovious' Flora Virginica (1739-47) and Bauhin's Theatri
Botanici (1623) as the authorities. Bauhin called it Vitex latiore folio.
History of Use and Folklore
Ancient Medicine (Egyptians, Greeks, Romans)
The ancients valued vitex highly for many health problems, and used its branches for
making furniture. Pliny, the great writer and compiler on natural history, said the seeds
taste like wine when a drink is made of them, and were taken to reduce fevers and
stimulate perspiration. The drink was used in similar ways common today in European
herbalism: to promote menstruation, "to purge the uterus" and to promote
the free flow of milk in new mothers. According to Pliny, vitex was highly revered as one
of the most useful medicines of the times. Because of their hot nature, the seeds of Vitex
were taken to dispel "wind" or flatulence from the bowels, to promote urine,
check diarrhea and greatly benefit dropsy and splenic diseases. The remedy was considered
efficacious as an antidote to the bites of spiders and snakes. Pliny mentions two kinds of
agnus castus-- one that is small and shrubby and the other a small tree with speckled
flowers. The Greek historian wrote that the smaller one was the more effective for snake
bites. One drachma of the seed, or two of the most tender leaves, were taken in wine, or
in vinegar and water. A tincture of fruits, or an herbal wine seem to be an effective way
of taking vitex, as the oldest and best-studied vitex product is a liquid tincture.
Throughout history, vitex has been associated with sexual passion. Pliny claims that vitex
"checks violent sexual desire." The blossom and tender shoots mixed with rose
oil clear away headache "due to intoxication." A fomentation and
decoction "takes away the more severe type of headache, purges the uterus, and the
bowels, if drunk with pennyroyal." Finally, an interesting application, though
perhaps not so useful today--"It is said that those who keep a twig in their hand or
in their girdle do not suffer from chafing between the thighs." Maybe it was the
Roman feasts that made this a real problem.
Dioscorides, the greatest and most reliable of the ancient herbalists writes more in his De
Materia Medica (about 55 A.D.), about vitex than many of the hundreds of other herbs
he includes in the work. Most remarkably, his account of its properties are exactly those
that are the major modern indications: "it both brings down the milk and expels ye
menstrua--being drank ...in wine [and]..a decoction of the seed [is for] inflammation
about the womb." Mixed with pulegeum (pennyroyal) he further recommends it for
headaches, perhaps attendant with menstrual difficulties. He stresses that externally (as
a poltice or fomentation) it is of service in inflammations, venomous bites and wounds.
Dioscorides also quotes from earlier authors that vitex has a warming, binding faculty and
that the "seed [is] as of pepper." He echoes earlier works, too, in hinting that
the origin of the legends about vitex being able to curb sexual appetites derived from
women placing the foul-smelling branches and leaves upon their bed to deter amorous men.
Middle Ages (Arabians, Salerno, Saxon Leechdom)
After the Roman period, herbalism did not continue to develop in a very critical or
sophisticated way--most writers copied and recopied the Codex of Dioscorides and
the works of a few other ancient medical writers. Of course, the day-to-day use of herbs
by the common people continued throughout the period. Novel written herbals from this
period (100 - 900 AD) are very rare, existing only in manuscript form, and few, if any,
have been reprinted , so they are not generally available. About 850 AD, original medical
and pharmaceutical ideas again began to flourish in Persia, during the "Golden Age of
Arabic science." These ideas and evolutionary writings were preserved in the works of
several notable authors on medicine, materia medica and pharmacy; and about the same time,
the first herb books were written down in medieval Anglo-Saxon (in England) by
"leeches" or doctors who used herbs and other cures, in their
"leechbooks."
Agnus castus was apparently known by the Persians, as seen in two of the translated works
on materia medica, The Medical Formulary of Al-Kindi from the last half of the 9th
century, and The Medical Formulary of Al-Samarquandi from about 1200 AD. The
Persian name was Faqad, banjakusht or fanjakusht. Al-Samarqandi mentions its use with
other simples to "cure insanity, the stroke of madness and epilepsy."
Levey, the researcher and translator of these two Arabian works, adds that the fruits are
currently sold in Egyptian bazaars as "a calming agent in hysteria." Al
Kindi mixes agnus castus with other herbs to make a "black remedy" to
cure insanity, madness and epilepsy.
Vitex did not grow naturally in England, so it may not have been known at the time of the
Anglo-Saxon leeches, around 900 to 1450. It is not mentioned in the Leech-book of Bald
or the Herbarium of Apuleius.
The Renaissance (The Age of Herbalism)
After the Persian period, which ended about 1450, the Renaissance began to flower in
Europe, which was especially fortuitous for herbal medicine especially after the invention
of the printing press--about 1455.
Among the earliest herbals of the Renaissance (in English) is Banckes' Herbal (1525),
which is generally presumed to be a compilation from other, older sources. Vitex is given
as much space as most of the other herbs, so it must have been well-known in England
before 1500, at least--although the uses Banckes quotes about Angus castus, such as "it
will keep men and women chaste," drunk with fennel seed, "it will destroy
the dropsy," or washing a man's head will cure "an evil that is called
lethargy" are not very revealing. Also, the herb is said to be good to "defy
[dispel] the hardness and stopping of the milt" [spleen]. Vitex is described as
having yellow flowers and bear black berries, so he may never have actually seen the
plant.
After Bancke's Herbal, a series of what are called "the great herbals" were
published over the next 100 years; namely, in Germany, by Boch, Fuchs, Brunfels and in
England, Turner, Dodoens (English translation from the Dutch), Gerard and Parkinson and in
Italy, Matthioli. Culpepper's famous herbal was published just after Parkinson's (late
1600s), and drew heavily on the other, older herbals.
Gerard, one of the greatest of the Renaissance herbalists, gathered herbal uses from the
ancients, folk uses of the time and uses from professional herbalists and wrote them down
in his famous Herbal. His information tends to be fanciful and practical, both. On the
fanciful side, he considers that vitex will have the same effect whether it is taken in
powder, tea or whether "the leaves be carried about the body." As is
usual throughout this period, Gerard mentions that it is the remedy for those who
would live chaste. On the practical side, he also extols it as a cure for "windiness
of the stomach," or flatulence. Those who drink an infusion of the fruits in wine
(a wineglass full at a time) can also expect that it will "cureth the stoppings of
the liver and spleen". Gerard also encourages its use as a "female"
herb. He writes that the seed and leaves are good against pain and inflammations of the
uterus, and that the seed drunk with pennyroyal will bring on the menses and as a
poultice, cure a headache (which is a quote from Dioscorides).
Official Medicine in Europe (1618 to the early 1700's)
Vitex was official in some European pharmacopoeias, including the influential first Pharmacopoeia
Londinensis of 1618, but quickly was dropped from official status, and by 1713,
Alleyne, in his New English Dispensatory, reporting on official drugs, could only
say, "...not now in esteem, or scarce ever made or used in the shops." In
1790 the only major official pharmacopoeia it could be seen in was that of Dispensatorium
pharmaceuticum Brunsvicense (1777). Currently, it is not listed as official in any
pharmacopeias in Martindale's Extra Pharmacopeia.xx?
The Modern Age
Vitex was well-known in the early 1700's in England, and the belief of the ancients that
it was efficacious to quell excess sexual passions was often quoted, but it wasn't much
used in medical practice by "the moderns." James, in his Pharmacopoeia
Universalis (1747), asserts that the common belief of the current practitioners was
that the herb was only repressive to the passions in people who were excessively hot,
because of its drying nature, which might act to dry up excess "seed," but that
because of its hot nature, it could actually be a stimulant of sexual desire where the
person was "cold:" "Persons languid in this respect are to be stimulated
and roused." It is interesting that many of the energetic properties of vitex and
other herbs were ascribed to them, in some cases quite close to ones given in current
Traditional Chinese Medicine.
To summarize, vitex was revered for many ailments, such as colic, gas and other digestive
problems in areas where it grew naturally, namely around the Mediterranean area. In
England, it was considered to be useful for the above conditions based on the writings of
the Greeks and Romans--it had a very strong reputation, which carried through for
centuries. The English began to lose interest in it about the 1700's and didn't get
excited about it again until the middle 1900's, at which time it became known as a
valuable herb for female reproductive imbalances. For instance, Vitex cannot be found in
any of the English herbals from the early 1900's, such as Leyel's herbals or Potter's.
Grieve, in her famous A Modern Herbal, gives Vitex a scant paragraph or two, saying
that "a tincture (of the fresh, ripe berries are used] for the relief of
paralysis, pains in the limbs, weakness, etc."
In Germany and France, the herb was more used and had less of a drop in popularity than in
the more distant England. For instance, in the 1880's in France, the fruits were said to
be bitter and aromatic, a promoter of good digestion, diuretic, carminative and to remove
"visceral obstructions." The author of a French medical herbal work of
the late 1800's, Cazin, mentions that the use of vitex to cool the passions was
well-known; also mentioned is a famous syrup, "an infallible remedy for
maintaining chastity and repressing the ardors of Venus," made from the seeds by
a contemporary priest "endowed with great piety and an apostolic zeal."
He goes on to say that the remedy was distributed in the convents to subdue passion, but
he doubted it had that effect. Rather he considered that it had "a very
stimulating property."
Folk Medicine vs. "Official Medicine"
It is somewhat revealing that Vitex agnus castus has not been listed in the
official medicine books to any extent, indicating that it has been most used in folk
medicine. It was revered and widely used in Greek, Roman, Persian medicine and during the
middle-ages, throughout Europe, dropping from official ranks in the middle 1600's. From
there, it was widely used as a common folk-remedy for female hormonal imbalances and for
stimulating the milk flow until present, as is reviewed above. In the early part of the
1900's, it began to be investigated chemically and in the 1950's, pharmacologically in the
clinic and laboratory. It is currently seeing a new wave of popularity in England, other
parts of Europe.
American Medicine
Vitex was not known or used in American medicine, either in "official" medicine
or in folk medicine and even the most comprehensive of the Eclectic medical works, the
Felter-Lloyd revision of King's American Dispensatory, only mentions it in passing.
However, it is currently receiving interest in herbal-based clinical practices for a
variety of female disorders, and products containing Vitex are widely available in natural
food stores and herb stores across the country.
Use in Asia, other Cultures
Vitex agnus-castus is not used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), or in
traditional east Indian medicine (Ayurveda), though it is indigenous into Baluchistan in
Pakistan and occasionally grown in Indian gardens. Several other Vitex species are
used in these traditional systems, especially Vitex negundo, and V. trifoliata
(=V. incisa). In Ayurveda, the two are used in similar ways, but the latter plant
is considered stronger. A tea of the roots (1/2 cup 2X daily) is reported to be a pleasant
bitter in cases of malaria and typhus fevers and is commonly used for a number of everyday
health problems.
Vitex negundo is known throughout Asia and grows abundantly in southern India,
where the fruits are considered a vermifuge. V. negundo is found plentifully in
North China, and in TCM the roots are employed in colds and rheumatic pains, and an
infusion of the twigs is considered to be an effective remedy for headaches, dizziness,
convulsions of children, coughs, mental unrest and is said to promote wakefulness.
Interestingly, the seeds of the same plant (and other species of Vitex) are reported sold
in Chinese pharmacies in Malaya under the name Ching tzü as the main part used in
medicine, which echos the use of V. agnus-castus in western herbalism. Hooper
reports that the fruits are "given for headache, catarrh and watery eyes."
The seeds of V. trifoliata are prescibed in headache and catarrh and are said to
promote the growth of the beard; they are also used as a remedy for breast cancer.
A hot decoction of the seeds of vitex are used as a contraceptive, and as a hot decoction
and vaginal pessary for an emmenagogue in Unani traditional medicine, according to
Razzack.
History of Vitex use at a glance**
ca. 400 B.C. Hippocrates recommended it for injuries, inflammations and enlargement of the
spleen.
ca. 50 A.D. Dioscorides says it is good for inflammations of the womb (uterus) and for
stimulating mother's milk
1200 In the Persian school, Al-Kindi recommended Vitex for epilepsy
1633 Gerard and other Renaissance herbalists recommended Vitex for inflammation of the
uterus and as an emmenagogue
1930 Madaus' work was among the first modern "provings" on Vitex
1953 First clinical work on vitex's galactagogue activity (using Agnolyt)
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