Feverfew has had a long history of medicinal use. Steven Foster, one of America's most eminent herbalists, points out in his excellent monograph on feverfew that Dioscorides, a first century Greek physician, recommended it over 1900 years ago.Foster further informs us that feverfew has been used throughout the world in various cultures in a number of other ways. It has been used as a carminative (relieves stomach problems-gaseous distention and flatulence), emmenagogue (substance which promotes menstrual discharge), tonic, vermifuge (expeller of parasitic worms), and anti inflammatory agent for arthritis. It has also been used for the treatment of kidney pain, vertigo, and relief from morning sickness.Parthenolide content.

A strongly aromatic perennial, feverfew bears a daisy-like disc, or head, of strongly crowded bisexual yellow flowers with a single row of white ray florets. Two well publicized British studies, one conducted at the City of London Migraine Clinic in collaboration with Chelsea College , and the other at Nottingham's University Hospital , used material conforming to this description. Dried leaf, acquired from the Chelsea Physic Garden with a parthenolide (asesquiterpene lactone thought to be the active ingredient) at a concentration of 0.42%, was used in the London clinical trial. However, it should be noted that the parthenolide content varies in the three or four varieties available and that the greatest percentage of parthenolide is not to be found in the leaves of the variety chosen for the British studies but in a form (T. parthenium flosculosum) without ray florets.