- Anti-inflammatory that relieves headaches, herbal forerunner of aspirin, contains salicylic acid but, unlike aspirin, doesn't cause gastric upset.
- Actually neutralizes stomach acid and overacidity of the whole system.
Meadowsweet has been used in folk medicine as a diuretic and to treat rheumatism and gout.
Meadowsweet is used today as a diuretic, and to treat headache. Meadowsweet is used as a mucolytic for coughs and bronchitis. Meadowsweet is also used to treat a variety of articular disorders including rhematic arthritis and sprains.
Meadowsweet is an appealing herb in many ways: In the garden, it gives off a pleasant wintergreen and sweet almond fragrance, and its wrinkled, dark-green leaves with 3-foot reddish stalks delight the senses. But the herb is probably best known for its chemical components, which have made it popular throughout history as a remedy for aches and fever.
Meadowsweet was the key headache-busting ingredient from which aspirin was synthesized; Bayer Pharma-ceuticals used dried meadowsweet leaves for its original methyl salicylic acid formulation.
