Historically, damiana has been consumed as a beverage tea in western Mexico, rather than as an herbal remedy. Traditionally it was considered a tasty tea, with stimulating and soothing qualities. It was also employed as a pleasant warm drink to treat colic and to bring on the suppressed menses. The steam from the tea has been inhaled to relieve headache, and sipped to stop bedwetting. Its long standing reputation as an aphrodisiac evolves out of the first attempts to market the herb in the 1870s. Writing from La Paz, Mexico in February 1904, Prof. John Uri Lloyd, observed its use. “Damiana is a homely, domestic remedy, innocent of the attributes under which, in American medicine, it has, for a quarter of a century, been forced to masquerade.” Nearly a century later, the controversy continues.

Turnera diffusa-32864