Eden Apothecary · Herb Profile
Artemisia absinthium
Pronounced Wormwood: WURM-wood. Artemisia absinthium: ar-tuh-MEE-zhee-uh ab-SIN-thee-um.
Warm, dry, and intensely bitter: a stimulating aromatic bitter that fires up cold, atonic digestion, moves stagnant bile, and expels worms.
Contraindicated. Wormwood is a traditional emmenagogue and uterine stimulant with a longstanding abortifacient reputation, and its thujone content adds a neurotoxic hazard; the AHPA Botanical Safety Handbook assigns it to the not-for-use-in-pregnancy class and Brinker lists it as contraindicated in pregnancy. Do not use. Sources: AHPA Botanical Safety Handbook (2nd ed., Artemisia absinthium); Brinker, Herb Contraindications and Drug Interactions; NCCIH.
Avoid; insufficient data. Thujone is neurotoxic and lipophilic and can pass into milk, and there is no reliable human lactation safety data (no NIH LactMed clearance for the whole herb); AHPA advises against use during lactation. Do not use while breastfeeding. Sources: AHPA Botanical Safety Handbook (2nd ed.); Brinker, Herb Contraindications and Drug Interactions; NCCIH (insufficient data).
Avoid internal use in infants and children. Although wormwood was historically given to children as a short-course vermifuge under a practitioner's supervision, the thujone-related risk of seizures and neurotoxicity makes it inappropriate for routine or self-directed pediatric use; if a parasitic infection is suspected in a child, refer for diagnosis and targeted treatment. Sources: AHPA Botanical Safety Handbook (2nd ed.); NCCIH; Mills and Bone, Principles and Practice of Phytotherapy.
A narrow-margin herb. The volatile oil is rich in alpha- and beta-thujone, a GABA-A receptor antagonist that is proconvulsant and neurotoxic in excess; high doses, prolonged use, or the concentrated essential oil taken internally can cause the historical syndrome of absinthism (restlessness, tremor, insomnia, and tonic-clonic convulsions). Use only low doses in short courses, do not exceed recommended amounts or duration, and never take the pure essential oil internally. The intense bitterness can provoke nausea, and the herb is unsuitable for the hot, dry, or nervously excitable constitution. Best reserved for practitioner-guided use rather than casual self-dosing.
Pregnancy and lactation (see safety fields); epilepsy or any seizure disorder (thujone is proconvulsant); concurrent anticonvulsant therapy; active peptic ulcer, acute gastritis, or acute gastrointestinal inflammation; known allergy to Artemisia or other Asteraceae (ragweed, chamomile, marigold, feverfew); and the hot, dry, or already-inflamed constitution. Do not use the essential oil internally and do not exceed the recommended dose or duration.
A hardy, fast-growing perennial native to Europe, temperate Asia, and North Africa and widely naturalized (at times weedy) across North America, so it is not a wild-at-risk species and does not appear on the United Plant Savers at-risk list. It is easily cultivated. Prefer organically cultivated or responsibly wildcrafted material with confirmed species identity, since several Artemisia species look alike and differ in thujone content.
Wormwood appears repeatedly in Scripture as the emblem of bitterness, sorrow, and divine judgment: Proverbs 5:4, Jeremiah 9:15, Jeremiah 23:15, Lamentations 3:15 and 3:19, Amos 5:7 and 6:12, and most famously Revelation 8:11, where the fallen star is named Wormwood and turns a third of the waters bitter. The Hebrew is la'anah and the Greek of Revelation is apsinthos. The biblical plant is a bitter desert Artemisia of the Holy Land (most likely Artemisia herba-alba or Artemisia judaica) rather than the European Artemisia absinthium, which is the type species that lends the whole genus its wormwood association. Also documented by Dioscorides (De Materia Medica) and Pliny as a bitter stomachic and vermifuge in the ancient Mediterranean world.
Related reading: Herbs in the Bible for Healing
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