Herbal Medics Academy / The Human Path

Home
United States
San Antonio, TX
Herbal Medics Academy / The Human Path

Call Website Contact the business

Online and on-site (Hill Country Texas and Northern New Mexico) programs and courses.
(1)

Online, Central Texas and Southern California programs and courses in herbal medicine - including Clinical Herbalism, Advanced Herbal Medicine making, Austere and Wilderness Medicine, WFA and WFR certification, Family practice herbalism & Emergency Birth

09/30/2026

This week's monograph: Parsely root (and seed)

Parsley is one of the most overlooked medicinals in the kitchen. In my experience the root is a nourishing restorative for people who are depleted, convalescent or not absorbing well, and it also moves water gently through the urinary tract.

Want to learn more about medicine making and how to use herbs? Classes run all year-round - here is the fall/winter schedule: https://herbalmedics.academy/2026-course-schedule-by-month/

Recipes, plant monographs, materia media, preparation details and more are on the app https://herbalmedics.passion.io

09/25/2026

This is one of the most common injuries in a remote setting. Quiz of the week: ankle sprain!

It is early afternoon of day 3 of a 5-day backpacking trip — about 6 hours from the nearest trailhead.
One of your group rolls his ankle on a loose rock and hobbles to a stop. Pack off, water down. He thinks he is probably fine, but he knows it is sprained.
You are the de facto team medic. Between the group you have a well-stocked first-aid kit.
He has been the most motivated member of this group. Even if the injury is serious, he will probably insist on continuing.

What will you do?
Post your answer before checking the results.
Want to learn in person? - The next Wilderness Herbal First Aid certification course is coming up Oct. 10 - 12th in Redlands CA.

09/24/2026

Part 2. This week's plant is pomegranate (specifically the peel) and we're looking at the risk map for contraindications AND the best places to use it therapeutically.
While the fruit has a long seductive past used in folk medicine for both an aphrodisiac and a contraceptive, today we're talking about its biofilm busting tannin.

Punicalagin, its main tannin, blocks the enzyme staph uses to anchor itself to tissue and build biofilm.

It turns down the chemical signaling bacteria use to coordinate a colony, and switches off the adhesion and motility genes in E. coli.
It also makes organisms more reachable by conventional antibiotics, which is why it shows up over and over again in antibiotic synergy research.

Learn more - we've got recipes, a materia medica, medicine making ratios and preparations ... in our app: herbal-medics.passion.io as well as taught for hundreds of plants, in our classes!

09/23/2026

Meet Rick Murphy, austere medicine and scout instructor and part-time ninja.

The video pretty much says it all, but we hope you'll get to meet Rick either in one of our remote medicine classes or in a wilderness scout class. He has a natural background in the outdoors after working in the military and then crossing over into chiropractic medicine. He's continuing to study and learn even more skills that make his classes constantly evolve & expand.

Dr. Murphy has been part of The Human Path since 2014, starting as a student in herbal medicine before becoming an instructor. He contributes to the clinical program as a teaching assistant and serves as a scout for clinical outreach missions. His background also includes professional intelligence training and more than two decades of martial arts study, with a focus on Ninjutsu — experience he integrates into the Scout curriculum to prepare students for real-world, resource-limited scenarios.

Check out his practice's website here: www.originspineandwellness.com

09/22/2026

Pomegranate peel is one of my most-used antibacterial herbs, and it uses the part that usually gets thrown away.

The peel is good for starting work before an infection ever takes hold. The peel extract keeps bacteria from anchoring, signaling to each other, and building biofilm in the first place, at concentrations well below what it takes to kill them.

That's what makes it such a strong preventive on any surface that keeps getting recolonized: gums, throat, skin.

Here's today's herbal monograph, starting today with a cheatsheet of pomegranate. We'll follow with a monograph risk-map, recipes, a medicine making tutorial and more.
Make sure you're following our IG channel where we release everything first, and the Herbal Medics app that has new materia medica added weekly!
https://www.instagram.com/thehumanpath/
http://herbal-medics.passion.io

09/21/2026

Here's a recipe for Monday, making medicinal ghee!

Ashwagandha carries constituents that are water soluble, constituents that are alcohol soluble, and constituents that are oil soluble and will not come out in either. Most preparations pick one lane and lose the other two.

The Ayurvedic answer was ghee — and the method turns out to be a multifractional extraction that predates the vocabulary by a few thousand years. Alcohol first, then water, then fat. The first two get boiled off, leaving everything they pulled behind in the butter.

It keeps for months on the counter, you use it anywhere you would use butter, and it tastes like browned butter. Because that is what it is.
Want more? make sure to check out the app and our classes on medicine making!

09/18/2026

Here's our most challenging post-disaster herbal quiz yet!
Read the first slide and comment here with what you'd do before checking on the answer!

The roads will not be drivable for days. There is no higher care available now and it is likely that there will be no access for days or even weeks.
Your aunt is 78 and has had asthma for forty years. She has caught the respiratory flu going through the area. She is wheezing, short of breath, and frightened.
She ran out of her inhaler four days ago, and has no other asthma medications
You only have dried herbs stored in your apothecary. No tinctures

What do you give her right now?

Post here, lets see how you did!

09/17/2026

We've noticed a ton of new students & followers recently and wanted to do a 'welcome' message with a bit about our school and what we're about for those of you finding out about us for the first time!

Herbal Medics was founded by Sam Coffman in 2007 as The Human Path, and over the years we've distilled the school from survival skills & wilderness medicine into medicine as the hub - working with herbs especially and creating a care plan with what you've got on your own. You know, just in case.

We have two medical doctors on our staff, a Doctor of Chiropractic Medicine, a PhD clinician, multiple EMTs, several nurses (one is also a midwife!) and faculty members who've been working with sustainable skills for decades.

The school is well-known for our roots in both disaster response and setting up herbal clinics in any kind of setting. We've done 18+ years of clinics everywhere from Nicaragua to West Virginia to Mexico, and countless areas that are underserved in our country, with inadequate healthcare accessibility. Students get unprecedented access to working with real clients in person at these clinics, building the clinical infrastructure together, making medicine and scouting the area prior to the clinic arriving.

We have an extensive clinical herbalism program with more than 400 hours that is suited both for laypeople who are just learning about herbs, but also healthcare providers who want to expand their practice or learn about the herbal side of care.

Our revamped Family Herbalism program covers topics ranging from herbal safety & dosages to pediatrics, reproductive health care, all the way to Furbology (herbalism for your pets), elder care, end-of-life workshops and healthcare advocacy.

The Austere Medicine program is an underlying core of the school, and deals with the question of "what would you do if you couldn't get to higher care". This includes talking about alternatives and solutions that are suited to the discussion of preventative care, disaster response and working in medical tourism. This is taught from BOTH the perspective of Western emergency medicine as well as herbal care in the field. It culminates in a 10-day intensive on-site (Utah) with Wilderness First Responder certification, daily field medicine skill procedures up to setting up and running a clinic locally.

And our Apothecarist medicine making program is an in-depth look at making medicine using beginning to advanced techniques, building up your own apothecary work-space to understanding FDA regulations for those that decide to sell products.

In addition, we also teach sustainable skill workshops and classes, with on-site blacksmithing, online root cellar and many classes on homesteading.

Courses run all year round, and every program has workshops or classes that new students can jump into throughout the year to begin their progress through one or more programs, sometimes simultaneously. In 2026, we're ramping up on-site classes in the Southern California region, central south Texas, Utah and Colorado. Wilderness Herbal First Aid certification courses remain one of our most recognizable on-site courses, taught all over the US, also offered online.

So if you're new to the school and just learning about us, welcome! We've got plenty to offer in any of these areas for all skill levels.

09/15/2026

Save and make this recipe this fall!
Astragalus and turmeric are two of the herbs people most often take as tinctures. A tincture misses important parts of what each one has to offer, though.
Both roots contain polysaccharides, which are large sugar molecules studied for their effects on the immune system. They dissolve in hot water and clump up in strong alcohol. In fact, manufacturers use alcohol to separate astragalus polysaccharides out of a water extract. Turmeric's version, called ukonans, gets left behind in an 80% tincture the same way. To get them, you need water, heat and time.
That fits how both plants have been used for a long time. In China, astragalus root often goes into the soup pot, and where turmeric grows, it's part of everyday cooking.
This congee simmers long enough to draw out what the astragalus has to give, and a little fat at the end helps your body absorb curcumin, the compound turmeric is best known for. It also tastes like a pretty good bowl of rice porridge.

09/14/2026

We might think of birch b**r (somewhat similar to root b**r) when we hear about the bark's uses, but it is actually very useful for soft tissue AND flushing out the urinary tract.

Its Monograph Monday and today's star is birch bark.

This versatile bark has two distinct therapeutic identities but they require opposite preparations to get the best out of them.
The outer bark has constituents that are ideal for wound and soft tissue work. It is lipophilic. Working with an oil infusion or a salve from the white outer bark does very well.

The leaf has constituents that are great for urinary action and you can get that with a 30% ethanol or a plain infusion.

For the full usage, material Medica, contraindications, and extraction processes, make sure to check out the herbal Medics app.

Are you interested in learning a lot more depth about plants? Check out our courses, the app, and study with us in person!

Address

San Antonio, TX

Telephone

+12108070645

Website

https://herbalmedics.academy/, https://www.youtube.com/@TheHumanPath/videos, https://www.instagram.com/thehumanpath/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Herbal Medics Academy / The Human Path posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.