SWEDISH BITTERS Pt 5

 

  

                                            SWEDISH BITTERS  

                

                                              By Nzinga Nzinga

Part 5

For Mrs. Maria Treben, herbalist of herbalists, crème de la crème of herbalists, whose contribution to the world of natural therapy, of herbal medicine is timeless. After taking your herbal recommendations, my life has never been the same. That is a sentiment felt by millions of your beneficiaries and admirers. I appreciate and love you to the max, Mama Maria!

“It can be said, and rightly so, that there is hardly any illness where Swedish Bitters is not of benefit, or at least is effective as a basis for every treatment.” Maria Treben, Health Through God’s Pharmacy

My own experiences
The addition of Swedish Bitters to herb teas or taken on its own, takes advantage of the healing benefits of the eleven medicinal herbs contained in these special bitters of great repute. I myself have seen what seemed like miraculous healing wrought by Swedish Bitters on myself and on several others. Swedish Bitters is very effective as a therapeutic and as a preventive agent.  

It’s an A1 blood cleanser, improves digestion, regulates the bowels, energizes and revitalises. It has a positive and supportive influence on the immune and metabolic systems. It can be used internally and externally. Read about it for yourself. It comes highly recommended from yours truly for the unhealthy as well as for the healthy.

Bear with me while I run through some of my experiences with the benefits of Swedish Bitters, a few of my own and some of others to whom I have introduced it.

 

I want to tell you about one of the many sick who benefited from Swedish Bitters. Hope was a woman in her thirties who used to sell on the piazza of my mother’s pharmacy in Jamaica. She constantly complained to me about terrible pains she had ‘down under’ which I understood to be under her abdomen, in her genital area. She said she was tired of taking ‘doctor medicine’ because they didn't help and only cost a lot of money that she could ill afford. She had heard from friends that I could help her and since I knew about medicines and was helping in my mother’s drug store, I should be able to help her even more. I told her that I couldn't help her because I wasn't a doctor and I didn't know what was really wrong with her.

So importunate was she that I agreed to help her. I told her there was no guarantee that my suggestions would help but she could give them a try. Given her impecunious circumstances, I knew she couldn't afford Swedish Bitters and imported Stinging Nettle and Yarrow, so I ignored the Yarrow and sent her to collect Cowitch (a nettle) from the bush and Calendula, (Marigold to many and Stinking Mary to most Jamaicans). I gave her some of my precious Swedish Bitters, which I am never without, to add to the tea. I advised her how to go about making the tea, the amount to take and what to expect from taking the mixture.

The following morning she came straight to report to me that she was feeling good, for the first time in a long while. She said that the stuff that she passed out in the chamber pot in the night was like pieces of rotted flesh in appearance and in its awful smell. There was so much pain in passing them out that she had to remain kneeling before her bed most of the time in order to bear the excruciating pain. It was like having a baby. 

The only thing that kept her from panicking was because I was only three-quarter mile away and I had predicted that she might go through exactly what she was experiencing. She said something about her experience that reminded me of what Mrs. Treben said about her first encounter with the efficacy of Swedish Bitters. Mrs. Treben said it felt as if with one movement of the hands, everything morbid in her body was pulled out. Hope said, in a similar vein, that she felt as if something was pulling out all that awful stuff from inside her.

I advised her to stay on the treatment for a while and when the Bitters ran out, she should just make the tea from the herbs. She later deposited a ‘smalls’ with me and asked me to keep it for her until she could save enough with me to buy a bottle of the Bitters. I went ahead and bought one for her and she paid in small instalments over a period of time. While I was still around she joyfully told me that she had recovered her health.

 Maas Ken

There is an old lady, whom I will call Aunt, from my hometown, Santa Cruz, St. Elizabeth in Jamaica, who knew a lot about medicinal herbs but no longer applied them to her illnesses or that of her husband’s because she had a ‘crush’ on one of the doctors in the town and used every opportunity to visit him. Her husband, Maas Ken, became a semi-invalid and from being a very active man riding his donkey many miles to work on his farm daily, he became a silent pain-ridden figure seated wherever they led him and having no appetite or energy.

One day I was on my way to Kingston and I stopped to visit them to find out if they wanted anything done in the city. I was surprised at his deteriorating condition. I asked her why she was not giving him herbs. She said she preferred the doctor medicine. I asked him how he felt about it and he replied that he would take anything as long as it brought relief and put him back on his feet.

I was very troubled so I asked him if I got some stuff for him if he would take it. He said that he would. I asked his wife, who loved me like the daughter she never had, and she said she would give it to him. Knowing her newly developed preference for ‘doctor medicine’, I didn't trust her to be consistent with the natural stuff I was getting for him so I incorporated the help of his grandson who was visiting from England and wholly amenable to what he considered an experiment.

From a health food shop in Kingston I bought a comprehensive set of supplements for cleansing, rebuilding, energising etc, plus the indispensable elixir, Swedish Bitters and delegated the responsibility of the administration of these natural substances to his grandfather to him the following day. The Bitters was to be administered a tablespoon 3 times a day.

 

You may not want to believe me, but the morning following the day after Maas Ken started taking the stuff, his wife came to me and addressed me as ‘doctor’. I asked her why the new title. She said because all the ‘doctor medicine’ she had been using for such a long time never helped Maas Ken and in such a short space of time she started to see improvement.

She said that for the first night since she- did-not-know-when, she got some sleep because Maas Ken slept right through the night for the first time since he had become weak. She added that he asked for breakfast first thing that morning which was a delightful change since he had long lost his appetite. Later, the grandson came to give me a glowing report.

I was too busy to go and visit Maas Ken myself until about two days later when I was on my way into the city again and stopped by their house. Someone came to open the gate for us to drive in. I looked at the person with interest and remarked to my companion that I didn't know that Maas Ken had a brother who looked so much like him. When I drew nearer, he came to kiss me and it was only then that I realised that it was Maas Ken himself looking as fit as a fiddle.

Laughingly he said to me, ‘There are only two things wrong with you, Nzinga. One, you soon gone back abroad and two, you married already or you would have to marry me.’

I exclaimed with delight at the improvement in his health. He then drew me to a bench and sat us down, crying, ‘Look!’ He was crossing and uncrossing his legs at the knees.

‘Before I took  the medicine you gave me, I couldn't do this and look now.’ Tears came to my eyes.

The next day, his wife came to see me. She was laughing. ‘Nzinga, I have a bone to pick with you,’ she said, pointing a finger at me.

‘Pick on,’ I said.

‘You see how you put me in trouble?’ she accused me. 

‘Me? What ah do now, Aunt?’ I asked, all ears.

‘You see how you make Maas Ken turn man again.’

I didn't quite get the drift all at once. ‘What you saying, Aunt?’

‘Listen to me, Nzinga. Before Maas Ken start to take your medicine, Ah didn't have any problem when I was bathing him. All that time, Ah bathe him with no trouble at all. Now since your medicine start to work miracle, all I have is pure problem ‘cause Maas Ken turn man again!’

Everybody in the shop collapsed in ribald laughter and I can tell you that Aunt was the one who laughed longest and most happily. Maas Ken, her man, had indeed ‘turned man again!’

Aunt also recounted how a friend of hers came to visit complaining about a severe pain in her arm. She swabbed on some Swedish Bitters on the affected area. Not long after, she noticed her friend was using the arm painlessly so she asked, ‘How is yu arm?’

‘Mi arm? Oh, dat. Mi nebba eben memba anyting bout it. Nuttin wrong wid it now. Di pain gone’.

‘That is how fast Swedish Bitters works!’ Aunt exclaimed.

 I, myself, can attest to its rapid pain relieving quality. I just dab on a little and pain disappears miraculously!

We have to thank Maria Treben who used Dr. Samst’s writings to educate us about the benefits of taking Swedish Bitters. Maria Treben’s book Healing Through God’s Pharmacy offers instructions on how to use certain herbs for improving health and treating illnesses. It also documents testimonies. Cures is primarily a compilation of testimonies of beneficiaries of her herbal instructions not only about Swedish Bitters, but also of several other medicinal herbs. However, this is about Swedish Bitters.

Read Maria Treben's books, Health Through God’s Pharmacy and

Cures for further testimonies.

In another blog I have related how I became critically and mysteriously ill and that it was the administration of Swedish Bitters that healed me. It is related in Concrete Jungle: Without Jah I am Nothing At All in Close Up & Personal With Bob Marley at nzingawidbobmarley.blogspot.com

To be continued
_{All the images were taken from the Internet and I claim no copyright.}