Matthew Wood has been a practicing herbalist for more than forty years. He is an internationally known teacher and author with more than ten books to his credit, including The Book of Herbal Medicine, The Earthwise Herbal, Holistic Medicine and the Extracellular Matrix, and A Shamanic Herbal. Matthew has an MSc in herbal medicine from the Scottish School of Herbal Medicine (accredited, U. of Wales). He lives in the Midwest.

Foreword by Stephen Harrod Buhner

Introduction
Scientific Justification for Holistic Medicine

1 The Extracellular Matrix
The Primal Organ System

2 What Is Going On in There?
Water, Light, Warmth, Oxidation, Chemistry, and Electricity

3 The Ground Substance
Architecture of the Matrix

4 The Matrix and Wound Healing
Template for Healing Matrix Injury

5 Inhabitants of the Matrix
Cells, Tissues, and Organs

6 The In-Mix-Out of the Matrix
Basis for Holistic Treatment

Conclusion

Appendix
Homeostasis: Balance in the Matrix

References

Index

• Examines the function of the extracellular matrix, the inner ocean that unifies all our cells and controls them in a coordinated and integrated fashion
• Explores how the extracellular matrix builds and repairs itself and how holistic therapy can be applied based on this knowledge
• Introduces new and old holistic and herbal protocols for treatment of the matrix
The cells in our bodies are not independent units. They do not control their own feeding, elimination, migration, or reproduction; they are controlled by signals from the extracellular matrix (ECM) that surrounds them. This all-encompassing inner ocean unifies all our cells and controls them in a coordinated and integrated fashion.
Revealing the stunning implications of the extracellular matrix, Matthew Wood shows how it clearly explains the actions and efficacy of holistic therapies. He explores the groundbreaking research of Alfred Pischinger, who discovered the ECM in 1975, as well as the role of the matrix in transmitting and enacting the genetic code, including the roles of the mitochondria, the nucleus, and ribosomes.
Wood explains how modern drugs, directed at specific receptors on the cell membrane, interfere with bodily self-regulation. He details how holistic therapies modify the environment of the cell and strengthen the whole, bringing the body back to homeostasis and consequently offering true healing.