The best time to take herbal medicine is half an hour before meals.
Acute conditions: doses should be taken a few days until cessation of symptoms or on practitioner’s instructions.
Chronic cases: treatment may continue for weeks but with the break of a week after each period of 6 weeks.

Dosage may vary from herb to herb but today’s standard doses are as follows unless stated otherwise. Dried herbs may be swallowed with water or drunk as a tea or decoction. Dosage is usually thrice daily for chronic conditions and every 2 hours for acute cases. Refer to appropriate entries for dosage of teas (infusions), decoctions, powders, liquid extracts, tinctures.

Children : 5-12 years. One quarter to half an adult dose except where otherwise stated. Medical opinion is that after 12 years a child is regarded as an adult. For babies and children, teas and decoctions have much to commend them. Alcohol-based preparations should be avoided where possible.

Babies : 1-5 years. 1 to 5 teaspoons tea or decoction. Should a baby fail to take extract internally, a strong tea or decoction may be prepared and used as a footbath or poured into the bath water. This would need to be ten times as strong as for an internal dose. In this way medicaments may indirectly enter the circulation by absorption through a baby’s soft receptive tissue. Other liquid medicines: one drop for each year of age to 5 years; two drops for each year of age thereafter to 12 years.

Measurement information :

1 millimetre = 15 drops.
1 teaspoon = 5ml (5 millilitres or 75 drops liquid medicine)

For liquid medicines always use a medicine glass graduated in millilitres, or a standard dropper. Take liquid extracts or tinctures in water (25ml) or honey.