Suite à la création d’un certificat en 1803, l’herboristerie s’est développée comme un métier urbain, exercé essentiellement par des femmes. Peu encadrées par la loi, leurs activités tenaient autant à l’identification du mal qu’à la vente de remèdes. A la fin du siècle, la multiplication des propositions de loi visant à supprimer les herboristes, initiées en particulier par l’Association Générale des Pharmaciens de France, les amena à s’organiser en syndicats. Cherchant à transformer l’herboristerie en « profession » à part entière, ils revendiquèrent le caractère « scientifique » de leur savoir, notamment via la création d’une école syndicale, et cherchèrent à redéfinir les limites de leur métier par rapport à celui des pharmaciens. Jusqu’en 1941, où un décret-loi supprima le certificat d’herboriste. Depuis les années 1970, on observe un renouveau d’intérêt pour l’herboristerie, qui s’accompagne de profonds changements dans les pratiques des herboristes d’aujourd’hui. L’herboristerie apparaît, de nos jours, comme un moyen de prendre en main sa santé, de donner un nouveau sens à la maladie, et de rétablir un lien avec la « Nature ». A la croisée de l’ethnologie, de l’anthropologie historique et de la sociologie des professions, cette thèse est consacrée aux herboristes de 1803 à aujourd’hui, et rend compte des profonds bouleversements qui ont marqué les pratiques autant que les représentations autour de l’herboristerie, en lien avec l’évolution des questions de santé publique en France. / Following the creation of an herbalist certificate in France in 1803, that craft, mainly practiced by women, evolved as a urban occupation. At first, the legal framework regarding their activities was basically ineffectual. They were in charge both to identify the disease and to find a cure for it. At the end of the nineteenth century, the proliferation of bills aiming to take down herbalists, mainly initiated by the Association Générale des Pharmaciens de France, led them to gather into unions. They set the goal to transform the herbalist craft into an occupation in its own right: they claimed the scientific characteristic of their knowledge, created a botanical school, and presented themselves as a distinct profession from the pharmacists. It worked until 1941, when a decree abolished the herbalist certificate, during the Second World War. Since the 1970’s, herbalism has known a renewed success, along with deep changes in its practice. Nowadays, herbalism appears as a way to take control of our own health, to find a new meaning to the disease, and to establish a new relationship with Nature. Involving ethnology, historical anthropology and sociology of work, this thesis is dedicated to herbalists, from 1803 until today, and summarize the deep disruptions which marked its practices, along with the representations associated with herbalism, which can be connected to the evolution of the context of public health in France.

Syftet med detta arbete var att undersöka användningen av örtmedicin vid vasomotoriska symptom i klimakteriet. Frågorna som ställdes var vilka växter som användes, vilka delar av växterna som användes, och hur växtdelarna bereddes och användes. Den sista frågeställningen tog upp hur mycket växterna lindrade de vasomotoriska symptomen. En litteraturstudie genomfördes över vetenskapliga artiklar. I artiklarna användes 20 växter, men endast fem av dessa sas lindra de vasomotoriska symptomen. De fem växterna var Actaea racemosa, Angelica sinensis, Ginkgo biloba, Glycine sp. och Pimpinella anisum.  De växtdelar som oftast användes var rötterna och dessa bereddes ofta genom extrakt som bearbetades för att öka koncentrationen och omvandlas till pulver. Pulvret formades för det mesta till tabletter och kapslar. Ibland saknades information, som vetenskapliga namn på växterna, vilka växtdelar som användes eller hur växterna bereddes. I snitt lindrade växterna de vasomotoriska symptomen med 60 %. De flesta växterna visade sig lindra milda symptom mer än starka symptom. Ett undantag var P. anisum som minskade både antal och styrkan på vallningarna med 74 %. Denna litteraturstudie visar att det finns växter som påverkar de vasomotoriska symptomen i positiv riktning. Samtidigt visar den att informationen i artiklarna ibland är bristfällig och att man inte alltid studerar om växterna kan ge biverkningar. Örtmedicin skulle kunna vara ett alternativ för kvinnor som av olika anledningar inte kan eller vill använda syntetiska hormoner eller andra farmakologiska mediciner, men för att kunna ta in örtmedicin som en del av sjukvården krävs det longitudinella studier som även studerar eventuella biverkningar eller risker för att bättre säkerställa växternas effekt på människokroppen. / The aim of this study was to investigate the use of herbal medicine for vasomotor symptoms during menopause. The questions posed were which herbs that were used, what parts of the herbs that were used, and how the plant parts were prepared and utilized. The last question covered how much the plants alleviated the vasomotor symptoms. A review of the scientific literature was carried out. In the articles, 20 herbs and plants were used, but only five of them were said to relieve the vasomotor symptoms. The five plants were Actaea racemosa, Angelica sinensis, Ginkgo biloba, Glycine sp. and Pimpinella anisum.  The most commonly used parts of the herbs were the roots, often through extracts that were processed in order to increase the concentration and to transform the plant parts into powder. The powder was then for the most part transformed to tablets and capsules. Sometimes, information was missing, such as the scientific names of the plants, what parts of the plants that were used and how the herbs were prepared and utilized. On average, the herbs alleviated the vasomotor symptoms by 60 %. Most of the herbs appeared to relieve mild symptoms more than they alleviated strong symptoms. An exception was P. anisum, which decreased both the amount of and the strength of the flushes by 74 %. This literature study shows that there are plants that influence the vasomotor symptoms in a positive direction. At the same time, it shows that the information in the articles is sometimes incomplete and that the scientists do not always study if the herbs can give side effects. Herbal medicine could be an alternative for women who, for different reasons, cannot or do not want to take synthetic hormones or other pharmacological medicines. However, in order to make herbal medicine part of the treatment offered by public health care, longitudinal studies that also investigate possible side effects or risks are needed for securing the effect of the herbs on the human body.

This thesis comprises an exploration of the plant commonly known as plantain, or Plantago major, through participant observation of an apprenticeship in traditional western herbalism in the Ottawa region of Ontario, Canada. The first section delves into ideas and manifestations of “weediness” and “invasion”, while offering medicinal/ herbalist views of such plants as a kind of counterpoint. This touches on learning to garden, soil, lawns, plantations, invasive species, protests, and extrajudicial police killings among other topics. The following section, “horror in the hedge”, takes us first on an “herb walk” in Ottawa’s Experimental farm before moving on to a discussion of medicinal understory plants and Plantain alongside hedgerows, witch trials, plagues of Covid-19 and vibration in healing. From here the final section discusses medicine, delving first into the darker side of things as they manifest in the realm of medicinal mushrooms, again touching on the over-harvesting of medicinals, and the discoveries of supposed messiahs. Following is an exploration of how herbalists see continuity between the terrain of the human body and the land, returning again to the “herb walk” as a pedagogic mode utilized by herbalists. Finally, this work is summed up by an exploration of herbal formulation and medicine making, of the Anglo-Saxon Nine Herb’s Charm and the potent power of the triad. Drawing on Plantain as a kind of talisman, and structured after the Lacnunga’s Nine Herb’s charm, this work is an anthropological invocation of animist traditions emerging from Europe. To these ends, the works of Anna Tsing, Tim Ingold, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guatarri, Donna Haraway, Michael Taussig, Silvia Federici, David Abram, and Victor Turner, among many others, underpin the theoretical framework of this project.

L’herboristerie, activité consacrée à la préparation et à la vente de plantes médicinales, se renouvelle depuis les années 1970 autour d’acteurs aux pratiques techniques et approches scientifiques divergentes. Parmi eux, des paysans-herboristes cultivent, cueillent puis transforment eux-mêmes les espèces végétales qu’ils commercialisent tout en mobilisant les usages de la médecine végétale populaire transmis par l’ethnobotanique pour qualifier leurs qualités thérapeutiques. L’ethnobotanique est une discipline vouée à l’étude des relations flore-société investie notamment par des acteurs non-académiques qui travaillent sur le recueil des savoirs naturalistes populaires. La thèse met en lumière les ressorts de la relation que les paysans-herboristes tissent avec le végétal et la façon dont ils utilisent l’ethnobotanique pour asseoir la légitimité de leurs pratiques. En échangeant des savoirs sur les propriétés médicinales du végétal, il apparaît que les institutions de la recherche et du patrimoine d’une part, les paysans-herboristes et les ethnobotanistes d’autre part, participent à un processus de production collective de connaissances sur les plantes orienté vers le développement de l’autonomie thérapeutique. La thèse met également en évidence l’attention particulière des paysans-producteurs aux vulnérabilités humaines et végétales et la prise en compte de l’intentionnalité des plantes qui caractérise leur pratique de l’herboristerie. Les données de terrain ont été recueillies dans différents contextes entrelacés : les institutions patrimoniales et scientifiques, les arènes de l’herboristerie française et les fermes des paysans-herboristes. / Herbalism, or the activity of preparing and selling medicinal plants, has been going through a phase of renewal since the 1970’s, thanks to the actions of various participants whose technical practices and scientific approaches markedly differ. Among them, are the farmer-herbalists, who grow and pick medicinal plants, which they transform and commercialise, mobilising the traditions of popular plant medicine relayed by ethnobotany. Ethnobotany, a field of study which focuses on the relationships between plants and societies, is being invested by new players who, independently from academic institutions, work to collect popular naturalistic knowledge. This doctoral thesis proposes to shed light on the dynamics underlying the relationship that farmer-herbalists establish with the plant world, and on their use of ethnobotany as an argument to legitimise their practices. It appears that, through an exchange of knowledge about the medicinal properties of plants, institutions of research and conservation on the one hand, farmer-herbalists and ethnobotanists on the other hand, both contribute to the constitution of a collective body of knowledge on plants which promotes therapeutic autonomy. The thesis also emphasizes that the farmer-producers are particularly attentive to the vulnerabilities of both humans and plants, and that they take the plants’ intentionality into consideration – a defining characteristic of their herbalistic practices. The field data was collected in an array of varied, though intermingled, contexts: conservation and scientific institutions, the various arenas of French herbalism, and the farms of the farmer-herbalists.

This practicum focuses on developing a deeper knowledge about stress and our external environments. It is directed towards the profession of Landscape Architecture, and healthcare facilities including professionals. It outlines critical information about stress: how stress affects people’s physical, emotional, mental health and well-being, and how landscape architects are able to mitigate different types of stress through the design and use of our exterior environments, offering respite and healing in times of great need. Stress reveals and manifests itself in numerous ways. It has become a major problem within our society, much bigger than people care to acknowledge or believe. Landscape Architects have the ability to help people reflect upon the stress that they are under by creating spaces that inevitably sooth their ‘selves’. Through the profession and subsequent work of Landscape Architects the awareness of stress can be addressed, helping bring respite and relieve tension and stress, whether large or small, which is extremely critical in today’s society. Through the use of gardens and exterior spaces designed with stress-relief in mind, we will be able to decrease hospital stays, drug use and the overall amount of money used by medical institutions and governments, while decreasing the progression and succession of illness and diseases related to and accentuated or propagated by, or due to stress. Through this document I will discuss ideas and theories that influence and/or are pertinent to Landscape Architecture and stress, as well as natural elements that should be taken into consideration when starting to design or when planning a design that will be situated within medical institutions and healthcare facilities, but not limited to, and including any other exterior environment (such as a backyard). It will also outline design elements which emphasize appropriate ways to design these spaces and places responsibly and sensitively. By understanding how people respond to stress, Landscape Architects may be able to design appropriate, beautiful spaces. Initially this practicum was directed towards designing beautiful, meaningful gardens for the sick and/or dying, as well as for the families, visitors, and employees within healthcare settings. It has evolved, to include how our brains and bodies are physiologically affected by spaces and places that we encounter, and how these spaces either reduce or increase stress responses within us, therefore, increasing or decreasing our ability to heal, be healthy, and feel well. Stress is a major condition that is often “down-played”, ignored, or not understood within society. It is in fact a very serious condition / illness that has the ability to dictate the outcome of our physical and mental performances, and especially our health and well-being. Landscape Architects have the ability and responsibility to contribute positively to people’s bodily reactions to spaces: exterior and interior.

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