Category:Vulneraries

A vulnerary (Latin vulnerarius, wound-healer) is a herbal medicine applied to wounds, bruises, sprains, ulcers, and other tissue injury to support healing. The Western clinical-herbalist tradition has used the vulnerary category for several centuries and the action overlaps with topical anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial effects; the contemporary mechanistic understanding involves angiogenic stimulation, fibroblast and keratinocyte proliferation, modulation of inflammatory mediators, and direct antimicrobial activity in the wound bed.

The foundational vulneraries of Western use are calendula (Calendula officinalis; the European pot marigold, with substantial controlled-trial evidence for radiation-dermatitis prevention and accelerated wound healing); comfrey (Symphytum officinale; the "knit-bone" of medieval folk-herbalism, with documented topical wound-healing through allantoin-mediated cell proliferation and rosmarinic-acid anti-inflammatory effect; pyrrolizidine-alkaloid hepatotoxicity restricts use to topical-only application); plantain (Plantago major and P. lanceolata; the universal Eurasian wound-and-bite herb); yarrow (Achillea millefolium; the Native American and European wound-styptic, the source of the historical name "soldier's woundwort"); St John's wort (Hypericum perforatum; oil-infusion for nerve-pain wounds, bruising, and minor burns); self-heal (Prunella vulgaris; widely-distributed Northern Hemisphere wound herb); and the Australian tea tree oil (Melaleuca alternifolia) for antimicrobial wound action.

The TCM and Ayurvedic vulnerary traditions contribute San qi (Panax notoginseng; the Yunnan haemostatic-and-tissue-healing medicine, used in the proprietary "Yunnan Baiyao" wound powder), Centella asiatica (gotu kola; particularly for scar prevention and selected wound indications), aloe vera (cross-listed; for burns), and neem (Azadirachta indica; for tropical wound infection).

Calendula (Calendula officinalis), comfrey (Symphytum officinale; topical only), plantain (Plantago major), yarrow (Achillea millefolium), St John's wort (Hypericum perforatum), self-heal (Prunella vulgaris), tea tree oil (Melaleuca alternifolia), centella (Centella asiatica), aloe vera (cross-listed), San qi (Panax notoginseng), goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis), echinacea (cross-listed), arnica (Arnica montana; topical only for bruises and sprains, contraindicated on broken skin), and the historical herbal-wound preparations of the European folk tradition (woundwort Stachys officinalis, knapweed, the "all-heal" plants of various species).

The boundary of this category is "herb applied topically to wounds or to similar tissue injury to support healing." The systemic vulnerary action of selected herbs (the wound-healing-supportive effect of zinc-containing preparations, of vitamin C, of arginine and glutamine) is mineral and biochemical rather than herbal and is listed elsewhere. The pharmaceutical wound-healing medicines (topical antibiotics, the recombinant PDGF gel becaplermin, the modern wound-care dressings) are listed under their primary classes. Several vulneraries are cross-listed under dermatologic herbs for the broader skin-and-mucous-membrane application.

This category page is an encyclopedia article about its subject. The actual index of herbs belonging to the category is generated automatically by the wiki engine, from category-membership declarations on the individual herb pages, and appears at the foot of the page below the references.