Gumweed is a traditional
medicine of California Native Americans, such as the Chumash people. Gumweed was used clinically from the 1880s until 1960
in the United States and the United Kingdom for the treatment of asthma, bronchitis, and poison ivy rash
Expert Opinion and Historic/Folkloric Precedent:
The 1905 National Standard
Dispensatory lists the uses of gumweed: "stomachic, cardiac tonic, expectorant,to slow the heart, to increase blood pressure,
for asthma, whooping cough, chronic bronchitis, vesical catarrh, burns, blisters, herpes zoster, poison ivy dermatitis, and
in large doses to depress the nervous system". Vesical catarrh refers to bladder infections and other bladder conditions.
California Native Americans used
gumweed as a traditional medicine for asthma, bronchitis, coughs, and many other uses. The plant has been used for thousands
of years by California Native American children as a medicine and a food.
Prior to 1960 several tuberculosis
clinics in California used gumweed and yerba santa (Eriodictyon species) as primary ingredients in their treatments.
