Country Lore: Use Yarrow for Healing

Use yarrow to stop a bleeding wound.
October/November 2006

Several years back, I sliced my index finger with a rotary cutter, down into the muscle, leaving no flap of skin to cover the wound. My brother-in-law treated me with all the usual first-aid techniques, but couldn’t stop the bleeding.

Finally, I listened to my grandmother’s insistent little voice in my ear and sent my husband out to cut a yarrow leaf. We crushed the leaf into a wad the size of a pecan and bound it over the gushing wound with gauze and tape. In the process, one drop of blood about the size of a pencil eraser came through the bandage.

Twelve hours later, I gently cut off the bandage (no more blood other than the original spot), plucked off the yarrow leaf, and never had to bandage the wound again. Yarrow truly is a “blood stopper.”

Betty Hyatt
Hewitt, Minnesota