There are around five hundred different varieties of willow; several of them are useful in herbal medicine.
Since the beginnings of the current era (AD time), willow has been used for pain and inflammation. Historical evidence points to willow being used throughout Europe and North America for fever, pain relief, and easing swelling. Because the willow grows throughout the Northern hemisphere, many different people had relatively easy access to this healing powerhouse.
So what makes willow so amazing? A chemical called salicin. Many plants contain it — salicin was isolated in the 1820s from a plant called queen of the meadow. European chemists spent a lot of time working with salicin (named for the scientific genus of the willow: salix) and eventually produced salicylic acid and acetylsalicylic acid. In the 1890s, a chemist at Fredrich Bayer & Company in Germany picked up acetylsalicylic acid in the hopes of relieving his father’s rheumatoid arthritis. At first, the executives at Bayer weren’t fond of the idea of acetylsalicylic acid but eventually marketed the product as the aspirin we know and love today.
In medicine — even to this day — willow bark can be used as an astringent, an antiseptic, and more. You may find it useful for treating headache, fever, body aches, inflammation of the joints, and arthritis pain. It can be applied externally as a soak, rub, or poultice. It can be taken internally as a tea or decoction. Try boiling one teaspoon of white willow bark in one and a half pints of water. Keep it boiling for 30 minutes, then strain out the willow bits. After the decoction cools, you can take a tablespoon every few hours to ease pain and fever.
Willow is also useful in cosmetics because it is an astringent. That willow decoction recipe can be used as a facial rinse or added to lotions to make a facial cream.