Online Courses & Calculators
Herbal Constituents & Make Better Medicine
Herbal Constituents Courses
Herbal Constituents: The Essential Intro
If you're looking for accessible, concise, practical, accurate, and relevant explanations of how herbs and their constituents work, you've come to the right place ... Herbal Constituents: The Essential Intro will enrich your understanding of herbal medicine and help take your botanical practice to the next level!
We realize that not everyone has time for our comprehensive 2-semester course ... so we distilled it down to its essence while highlighting the most important parts. If you're a busy practitioner, pharmacist, formulator, medicine maker - or just phytochemically curious - this 20-hour course brings you the core knowledge you need to confidently explore herbal constituents. The Essential Intro offers a streamlined yet robust exploration of functional phytochemistry to enhance your clinical insights and formulation skills.
Herbal Constituents 1
registration is now closed until Summer 2025
Herbal Constituents goes in-depth to explore the nature of constituents, their structure and function, solubility & extraction, synergy and variability, which plants contain which phytochemicals, how constituents contribute to the actions and energetics of Western herbs, and how to use our knowledge of them in clinical practice and for herbal pharmacy / medicine making.
If you really want to understand constituents and basic botanical chemistry, this could be the class for you: The comprehensive course includes two 12-week sessions, each with videos, study guides, PowerPoint decks, handouts, quizzes, optional assignments, a forum, and weekly live webinars with Lisa Ganora and Kat Martello.
Registration for Herbal Constituents 2 remains open for students & graduates of HC 1.
Make Better Medicine & Short Courses
The first course in our Make Better Medicine series, Solubility & Extraction
is now available! Solubility & Extraction is the course for herbalists who want to take their medicine-making skills to the next level ... Join us to learn process based herbal pharmacy - the next step beyond a recipe based approach.
Learn the how and why of your methods and how you can dial them in to Make Better Medicine by understanding solubility & extraction with Herbal Constituents!
The second course in our Make Better Medicine series, Extraordinary Elixirs! (& Herbal Infused Honeys)
is now available! This in-depth course includes more than four hours of step-by-step video with corresponding study guides, a complete course booklet, elixir recipes, quizzes, and more to help you make concentrated herbal infused honeys and simple or complex multi-tincture and multi-honey elixirs. Also see the Tincture & Elixir Calculator below that simplifies elixir formulation math.
The Art & Science of Botanical Tincturing
Want to make more concentrated, consistent & potent tinctures? We'll show you how! Join us to explore the principles of solubility and extraction that apply to tincturing.
Dive into menstruum composition and learn the power of the Menstruum Math Calculator (included). We'll compare classical maceration, power maceration, SWSBM & Fenner's Formulary percolations & done-in-a-day tinctures using kitchen tools and home extractors.
Explore historical pharmacy methods of percolation and how to adapt them using modern equipment. This course includes the Menstruum Math calculator. Take your tincturing game to the next level with Herbal Constituents!
Comfrey & the PA Puzzle - Short Course
Learn the history of the different Comfrey species & cultivars, their synergistic phenolic constituents & the pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PA): what they are & why they matter.
We'll answer the many questions herbalists have about Comfrey: Is it safe? What about leaf vs. root? Is one species safer than another? What is the spectrum of PA toxicity? What are they soluble in? Can you absorb them through your skin? How does the liver metabolize them? Can they really cause liver damage? How much is too much? How valid are the case reports and contraindications? How can we interpret them in the context of clinical herbalism? What's the latest science?
We'll dive into phytochemical detail to answer these questions and give you the tools you need to make a rational risk/benefit analysis of this traditional medicinal plant. Includes detailed handouts with links to resources, an illustrated PowerPoint deck, a fun self-assessment quiz, and two recorded 2-hour Q&A Webinars with Lisa Ganora & Kat Martello!
Herbal Pharmacy Calculators
Elixir & Tincture Formula Calculator
If you make tincture formulas or elixir formulas to sell or for your clients, check out this handy calculator that does the math for both multi-herb tincture formulas and simple or multi-herb elixirs (tincture/s & honey together).
This calculator is the easy way to determine the final ethanol % in your formulas!
Includes a section that indicates the exact dose of each ingredient when the client takes a specific amount of your formula.
Like all our courses, the calculators also include access to the community Forum.
Menstruum Math Calculator
Save time and money with this convenient calculator that helps you to make any menstruum accurately, for use with any tincturing process! It will help you to dilute or concentrate a menstruum to the correct EtOH % or mix two menstrua together to get a new EtOH %. For use with fresh or dried herbs.
Note: If you register for the Art & Science of Botanical Tincturing course, this calculator is included - so no need to buy it separately. But if you don't need the full course, here's where you get just the calculator.
Like all our courses, the calculators also include access to the community Forum.