The Actual Value of DIY Medicine Making
I started looking into Ragnar Benson's work around 2014 when my wife's local pharmacy was having supply issues with basic antibiotics for her recurring sinus infection. We needed something practical, not theoretical, and what I found in his material turned out to be genuinely useful for a specific niche of situations. Not a replacement for professional care, but a set of techniques that work when you have the right ingredients and the patience to follow procedures. The core idea behind Do It Yourself Medicine Ragnar Benson is straightforward: take plant materials and use basic extraction methods to isolate the active compounds, then formulate them into usable forms like tinctures, salves, or poultices. It sounds simple because it is. What most people miss is the part about ratios, timing, and solvent selection. Get those wrong and you either waste hours of plant material or end up with something barely active.
Do It Yourself Medicine Ragnar Benson
Benson's main text covers several extraction pathways. The alcohol tincture method is the most commonly referenced and the most forgiving for beginners. You take dried plant material, chop or grind it, pack it into a jar, cover it with high-proof ethanol (at least 40% ABV, ideally 60-80% for most herbs), seal it, and let it sit for two to six weeks with occasional shaking. Then strain it through cheesecloth or a coffee filter, compress the leftover plant matter to recover every bit of liquid, and store the final tincture in a dark glass bottle. The solvent choice matters more than most people realize. Water-based extractions degrade faster and extract different compounds than alcohol does. For antimicrobial applications, alcohol tinctures of echinacea or garlic hold up for years. Water-based decoctions of the same herbs start losing potency within weeks and need refrigeration at best. Salves and ointments follow a different process. You make a herbal-infused oil first by heating dried plant material in olive or coconut oil at low temperature for several hours, then strain it, and finally mix the infused oil with beeswax to solidify it. The ratio of beeswax to oil determines hardness. Two ounces of beeswax per cup of oil gives you a firm salve. Four ounces gives you something closer to a balm. I usually aim for three ounces as a middle ground that spreads easily but doesn't melt off the skin immediately.
I made a yarrow salve once using freshly harvested yarrow instead of dried material. That was a mistake. The water content in fresh plant matter caused the salve to spoil within three weeks. It turned cloudy and developed a sour smell. Drying the yarrow completely before infusing it in oil would have prevented that entirely. Fresh herbs should only be used for direct poultices, never in shelf-stable preparations.
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What the Book Gets Right and Where It Falls Short
Benson's instructions are practical and the recipes are generally reliable. He writes from someone who has actually prepared these medicines, not from a textbook perspective. The sections on basic wound care, herbal antiseptics, and digestive remedies cover the situations where self-treatment makes sense. Where it falls short is in dosing guidance. The book gives ranges rather than precise amounts, which works fine for general wellness preparations but becomes a problem when you're dealing with something that needs consistent potency. If you're making an elderberry syrup for seasonal respiratory support, approximate ratios are fine. If you're preparing a valerian tincture for sleep and need a specific milligram amount of active compounds, you'll need to test and adjust your concentrations yourself. Another gap is the lack of information about drug-herb interactions. Making a valerian tincture is one thing. Combining it with prescription sedatives without understanding the cumulative effect is another. The book doesn't address this, and it should.
The section on preserving medicines is adequate but brief. Adding vitamin E oil to salves as an antioxidant, using absolute alcohol as a preservative boost in tinctures, and understanding the difference between pasteurization and sterilization would have made the preservation chapters more complete. Most homemade preparations last one to three years if stored properly. Some don't last three months.
Practical Constraints You Should Know About
sourcing quality plant material has gotten harder in recent years. Commercially grown herbs often have lower active compound concentrations than wild-harvested or organically grown material. This affects every preparation you make. Two cups of commercially grown echinacea root might produce half the tincture potency of the same amount of wild-harvested root. It's not a huge difference for casual use, but it matters if you're relying on these preparations for anything beyond placebo-level effects. Equipment costs are low but not zero. A good grinding setup, glass jars with proper seals, cheesecloth or filter paper, thermometers, and dark glass storage bottles will set you back maybe fifty to hundred dollars total. After that, your ongoing costs are the raw plant materials and solvents, which are generally inexpensive unless you're working with rare or specialty botanicals. Time is the real investment. A tincture needs two to six weeks of steeping time before you even begin processing it. A salve takes a few hours of low-heat infusion plus cooling and packaging time. If you're making multiple preparations, factor in shelf space and the learning curve of getting your ratios right on the first try. Most people waste one or two batches before their formulations stabilize.
When This Approach Actually Works
Self-made medicines make sense for minor, self-limiting conditions where the risk of attempting treatment is low. A mild cut that needs a topical antiseptic salve. A seasonal cold where elderberry or echinacea might provide some support. Digestive upset that responds to ginger or chamomile preparations. These are the situations where DIY medicine adds real value. They do not work for infections that require prescription intervention, chronic conditions that need monitored treatment, or any situation where delay in professional care could cause serious harm. I learned that the hard way when I attempted to treat a persistent skin infection with a homemade antibacterial salve instead of seeing a doctor. It worsened over five days before I went in. The prescription ointment cleared it in three. Nothing against the preparations themselves. The problem was applying them to a condition that needed pharmaceutical-grade treatment. The knowledge in these books is real and the methods are sound. They just represent one tier in a hierarchy of care. Using them appropriately means knowing when they're sufficient and when to step aside and seek professional help. That distinction separates people who use this knowledge safely from people who get hurt trying to handle everything themselves.
