Bach flower remedies

Dr Edward Bach, a bacteriologist, physician and homeopath practising in London at the beginning of the 20th century, was convinced that a healthy mind meant a healthy body. He believed that flowers could affect our state of mind and restore the balance necessary for good health and well-being. When he died in 1936, he had developed a complete self-help system of 38 essences, prepared from 37 flowers of wild plants, shrubs and trees, plus one from rock water.

Healing properties
Dr Bach identified the remedies by holding his hand over a plant, in the belief that he could intuitively recognise its healing properties. A dewdrop warming in the sun on a plant would acquire these properties, he said. Later, when he moved to Mount Vernon, the small house in Oxfordshire that is still the Dr Edward Bach Centre, he perfected the two methods of making plant essences that are used today.

In the first, known as the 'sun method', flowers are gathered at their fullest blossoming on a cloudless sunny day and laid in spring water in a glass bowl. The bowl is left in full sun for three to four hours and when the blossoms begin to wilt they are lifted out of the water with twigs from the same plant. The remaining water is preserved by adding alcohol and then diluted with more spring water before bottling.

Plants that blossom later in the year when the sun is not so strong are processed with the 'boiling method.' The blossoms, twigs and leaves of the plant are simmered in spring water for about 30 minutes. The mixture is left to cool and filtered, then prepared in the same way as in the 'sun method.'