Dr Edward Bach

Dr Edward Bach M.B., B.S., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., D.H.P. (Camb.)

The man who discovered the Flower Remedies

By Alice Digby and Jane Stevenson

Flower Remedies/Essences are a simple and natural method of healing through the personality, by means of the essence of wild flowers. This method was discovered in the 1930s by Edward Bach (correctly pronounced 'batch' or, idiomatically, 'baych'). Dr Bach is now perhaps most famous for his Rescue Remedy™. This method of treatment and the thirty-eight remedies which comprise its pharmacopoeia were discovered by Bach, a renowned physician, who practiced for over twenty years in London as a Harley Street consultant and bacteriologist.

He studied medicine at the University College Hospital, London, where he was a surgeon. Despite the success of his work with orthodox medicine he felt dissatisfied with the way doctors were expected to concentrate on diseases and ignore the people who were suffering them. He was inspired by his work with homeopathy but wanted to find remedies that would be simpler and solely to treat emotional states. So in 1930 he gave up his lucrative Harley Street practice and left London, determined to devote the rest of his life to the new system of medicine that he was sure could be found in nature.

Abandoning the scientific methods he had previously used, he relied instead on his natural gifts as a healer, and used his intuition to guide him through the meadows and lanes of the British countryside including Wales, Oxfordshire and Cromer in Norfolk. He would suffer the emotional state that he needed to cure and then try various plants and flowers until he found the one single plant that could help him. One by one he found the remedies he wanted, each aimed at a particular mental state or emotion. He found that when he treated the personalities and feelings of his patients their unhappiness and physical distress would be alleviated as the natural healing potential in their bodies was unblocked and allowed to work once more. In this way, through great personal suffering and sacrifice, he completed his life's work.

Dr Bach spent much of his time studying the Flower Remedies whilst living in the English seaside town of Cromer in Norfolk, where he discovered many of his remedies on the Cromer cliffs. (Cromer is also the home town of the English Flower Essence Company Creature Comforters).

Dr Bach's wish was that everyone, whether medically trained or not, would have the means to use his healing system of Flower Remedies. He was also keen to develop a straightforward pharmacopoeia and simple method of production so that they could actually be made by anyone too (by following his precise instructions). Therefore, it is well known, by Dr Bach literarys, that he would have commended - nay celebrated, the situation we have now, over seventy years after his death, where there are dozens of small, independent Flower Essence Companies, all over the world, making and selling the remedies ~ just like Creature Comforters UK. This is said to have been precisely Dr Bach's wish.

Dr Bach passed away on the evening of November 27th, 1936. He was only 50 years old, but has left behind him a lifetime's experience and dedication, and a highly respected system of medicine that is now used all over the world. He also gave us the, now famous, Rescue Remedy™ which is used by many throughout the world including actors, musicians, politicians, 'celebrities', the military, doctors, vets, Olympic sports men and women and members of the Royal family!

© Creature Comforters 2009
References
1. P. Chancellor (1971) The Handbook of the Bach Flower Remedies. Hillman Printers
2. Bach Directory (2004)