Used as an infusion, decoction, tincture, ointment and preserve.

The 1997 Commission E on Phytotherapy and Herbal Substances of the German Federal Institute for Drugs recommends Elder flower for 'Colds.'

'Average daily dosage: 10 - 15 g drug; 1.5 - 3 g fluidextract (according to Erg. B. 6); 2.5 - 7.5 g tincture (according to Erg. B. 6); equivalent preparations. Mode of Administration: Whole herb and other galenical preparations for teas, 1 - 2 cups of tea sipped several times daily, as hot as possible. Actions: Diaphoretic; Increased bronchial secretion.'

Elder soothes coughs and inflammation by increasing bronchial secretions. It also noticeably increases sweating. Both the flowers and the berries are diaphoretic, anti-catarrhal and anti-spasmodic.

Flavonoid-rich Elder, berries and flowers, are cell-protective and antioxidant. Elder leaves, have been shown to be antiviral, inhibiting such as flu and herpes viruses. Elder syrup has been shown to lessen flu symptoms and speed recovery. Elder flowers have been shown to be anti-inflammatory.

Grieve's classic 'A Modern Herbal': 'Elder Flowers and Elder Berries have long been used in the English countryside for making many home-made drinks and preserves that are almost as great favourites now as in the time of our great-grandmothers. The berries make an excellent home-made wine and winter cordial, which improves with age, and taken hot with sugar, just before going to bed, is an old-fashioned and well established cure for a cold.'

King's 1898 Dispensatory: (of the closely related Sambucus canadensis) 'Sambucus canadensis is an indigenous shrub, growing in all parts of the United States... S. nigra is indigenous to Europe, growing in situations similar to those of the American variety. The two plants possess similar medicinal properties. The medicinal parts are the flowers, the berries, and the inner bark.'

'Sambucus is stimulant to all of the emunctories, increasing secretion.'

'In warm infusion, elder flowers are diaphoretic and gently stimulant; in cold infusion, they are diuretic, alterative, and cooling, and may be used in all diseases requiring such action, as in hepatic derangements of children, erysipelas, erysipelatous diseases, etc. In infusion, with maidenhair and beech-drops, they will be found very valuable in all erysipelatous [febrile skin inflammation] diseases.'

'The expressed juice of the berries, evaporated to the consistence of a syrup, is a valuable aperient and alterative; 1 ounce of it will purge. An infusion of the young leaf-buds is likewise purgative, and sometimes acts with violence. The flowers and expressed juice of the berries have been beneficially employed in scrofula, cutaneous diseases, syphilis, rheumatism, etc.'

'Beaten up with lard or cream, it forms an excellent discutient ointment, which is of much value in burns, scalds, and some cutaneous diseases, such as eczema, milk-scall, old ulcers, with soft, oedematous edges and free secretion of serum, and in mucous patches, with free discharges.'

'The dose of specific sambucus ranges from 1 to 60 drops; decoction (inner bark, 2 ounces, to water, 1 quart, boiled down to 1 pint), from 2 to 4 fluid ounces.'

American Materia Medica, 1919 (Ellingwood): 'The strong infusion [of Sambucus canadensis] is diaphoretic and stimulating. The agent has also alterative, cathartic and diuretic properties which are of value in urinary inactivity, with excretion of renal sand, accompanied with muscular aching, stiffness, or rheumatic pains.'

'A strong infusion is sometimes of great service in removing dropsical effusions. Cases are reported in which extreme general dropsy seemed to threaten immediate death, where relief was quickly and permanently obtained by the use of this remedy.'

Department of Virology, Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem, Israel, in Altern. Complement. Med. 1995 Winter;1(4):361-9

A standardized elderberry extract, Sambucol (SAM), reduced hemagglutination and inhibited replication of human influenza viruses.... A placebo-controlled, double blind study was carried out on a group of individuals living in an agricultural community (kibbutz) during an outbreak of influenza B/Panama in 1993. Fever, feeling of improvement, and complete cure were recorded during 6 days.

Concluded the research team: 'No satisfactory medication to cure influenza type A and B is available. Considering the efficacy of the extract in vitro on all strains of influenza virus tested, the clinical results, its low cost, and absence of side-effects, this preparation could offer a possibility for safe treatment for influenza A and B.'