Herbs for Health

Some of you may be already sold on the value of herbs for health. But there's always something new to learn, so peruse, scan or read at will.

One of my first encounters with the power of herbs was with healing clay. I was barely 20 and training several hours a day outside at a martial arts camp in the woods of Washington. We were all barefoot. Well over a hundred people and I was the one to step on an old nail. It broke the skin, but I kept training. By evening my foot was infected.
A friend brought me some green French healing clay, which to my untrained eye just looked like more dirt, the stuff that had infected my foot. She was convincing though, so I tried it. By morning the infection was gone. I thought, now that's a coincidence. My foot healed even though I used that stuff. I had my world view and it didn't include green goop healing my foot. I saw no reason to use it again, despite my friend's instructions.
By lunch my foot was getting worse, by late afternoon it was infected again. This really surprised me because I thought I had healed. Since I had nothing else around (and my friend insisted) I put on the messy goop again. I was honestly afraid it would make my foot worse, but within a few hours the infection was gone.
Was I convinced? Of course not. It took another two times of the same game for me to really believe it was the clay that was taking away the infection. After that shake-up to my universe, trying herbs for health was an easy next step on my way to natural healing.