Medicinal Tinctures

The term ‘tincture’ comes from the Latin tinctūra which means to dye, or to color something. Medicinal tinctures are made by dyeing a substance, generally alcohol, with medicinal substances or active ingredients, generally from plants. Although in the spagyric tradition formulated by Paracelsus, other inputs such as animals, minerals or even metals can also be used. 

In Mexico after the Spanish Conquest there was a blend between the traditional knowledge of Mexican herbalism and the European tradition of the use of fermented and distilled plants (wines, beers and spirits), which eventually led to the use of herbal medicine tinctures.

A tincture is then a way of administering the active principles of a plant to a person, in order to contribute to his or her health. Based on traditional knowledge, or modern scientific validation of it, a herbal tincture provides certain advantages over using plants directly, as the tincture better extracts the active ingredients, allows for better standardization and dosage, as well as greater convenience in the storage, conservation and portability of medicine.

The way in which the tinctures are made, as well as their use, depends on the various traditions that exist in the world. For the purposes of this website, here we will mention the three that we find most popular and effective:  

1) Tinctures for microdoses: In the 20th century, Dr. Eugenio Martínez Bravo developed this method of administering tinctures, which uses very diluted doses, as well as different standardization for its preparation, in order to make its use popular and accessible among indigenous and rural communities in Latin America.  

2) Alchemical or spagyric tinctures: in this tradition, coming from Europe, plants are separated into three components: their spirit (their essential oils), their soul (the alcohol) and their body (the salts). These components are purified separately and then re-joined, in order to prepare a tincture with enhanced medicinal properties. 

3) Mother tinctures are the result of the mixture between the Mexican herbal tradition and the European methods of extracting substances. They are made by macerating the fresh plant in a combination of drinking alcohol and water. 

Modern medicine and traditional medicine follow two very different paths. As we mentioned in the herbalism section of this website, modern medicine is based on the scientific paradigm, which uses the experimental method, the accumulation of knowledge and evidence about diseases and their treatments. Instead, traditional medicine is based on knowledge inherited from generation to generation by cultures over time, and is based on accumulated experience, but above all on oral and experiential transmission.  

On the other hand, in most modern medical schools there is no education about traditional regional medicine or the herbal tradition. For this reason, tinctures or herbal remedies are not prescribed, and when patients arrive with diagnoses or treatments from traditional doctors at the clinics, a new history of the patient and his illnesses is simply made, and allopathic medicines are used, completely leaving out the use of the remedies prescribed by traditional doctors and from the person's spiritual perspective.   

In the same way, traditional doctors lack the scientific training and academic preparation of modern medicine, which is why they do not usually have access to clinical diagnostic tools, and they are also not qualified to prescribe allopathic medicines, much less to prescribe controlled medications or perform specialized surgeries or procedures. However, both traditions are not separated by following different paths. There are some countries in Europe where herbal remedies and herbal medicines are widely used and prescribed by modern doctors. Many people turn to both types of medicine to care for their health, recognizing that each has its virtues and that they can be complementary. What is undeniable is that plants have medicinal properties, many of which were used (and continue to be used) for a good part of chemically synthesized medicines; and also that tinctures are an effective mechanism to safely, practically and economically consume these active ingredients, and contribute to people's health.  

In Mexico, although similar regulatory frameworks exist throughout the world, the use of tinctures is regulated along with production for marketing for medicinal purposes. This establishes high quality standards for manufacturing through laws, regulations and standards. Although this provides security for urban populations regarding the consumption of these products, it is also the main obstacle to their wider use, since the production of tinctures is confined to:  

1) Regulated scheme: large companies that have the capacity to meet all health requirements (infrastructure, specialized personnel, permits, studies, records, certificates, etc.). This type of company is practically non-existent. Companies that have such capabilities engage in more lucrative businesses such as the production and marketing of allopathic medicines.   

2) Unregulated scheme: mainly self-consumption, where the user makes his own tinctures, buying herbal supplies in plant markets, electronic commerce or department stores. The purchase and sale of tinctures under other schemes, that is, by those unregulated entities, is then in a gray area, since they cannot be advertised for consumption or as herbal remedies.