Echinacea

Echinacea: what was it used for?

A remedy, in Grieve’s words, that “increases bodily resistance to infection,” used for boils, erysipelas, septicaemia, and impurities of the blood, its action being antiseptic; a tincture of the fresh root was found beneficial in diphtheria and putrid fevers. Its modern use is chiefly against the common cold.

Echinacea: what does modern science say?

The European Medicines Agency’s herbal committee treats each species and part separately. It accepts the expressed juice of the herb of E. purpurea on clinical evidence, as ‘well-established use,’ for the short-term prevention and treatment of the common cold, and, as a traditional herbal medicine, for small superficial wounds (monograph of 2015). As traditional herbal medicines, “exclusively based upon long-standing use,” it accepts the root of E. purpurea for the symptoms of the common cold and for the spots and pimples of mild acne (2017), the root of E. angustifolia for supportive treatment of the common cold (2012), and the root of E. pallida for the symptoms of the common cold (2018). Its assessment reports name caffeic acid derivatives, cichoric acid chief in E. purpurea and echinacoside in the other two roots, with alkamides, polysaccharides, and a little volatile oil; the root of E. pallida is almost without alkamides. The trials are less clear than the regulator. A Cochrane review of 2014, of twenty-four trials in 4,631 participants, found that echinacea products “have not here been shown to provide benefits for treating colds,” though a weak benefit from some products is possible, and that no single prevention comparison was significant, a post hoc pooling suggesting a relative risk reduction of 10 to 20 per cent. A 2025 meta-analysis of nine trials in children found that E. purpurea shortened upper respiratory infections and reduced their incidence and the use of antibiotics, while judging its safety profile unclear.

Echinacea: what did the older authorities say?

Grieve, A Modern Herbal (1931)

The plant was named Echinacea by Linnaeus, and Rudbeckia after Rudbeck, father and son, his predecessors at Uppsala. Grieve’s chapter is on E. angustifolia, the dried root and rhizome; of E. purpurea she adds only that it “has similar properties,” the fresh root being the part used.