Introduction

Herbal medicine is a practice that is as old as mankind, and certainly older than agriculture or writing; every human culture on every continent of the Earth has practiced herbal medicine of one form or another. Perhaps best described as "medicinal botany", herbal medicine involves taking plants, ingesting them, and seeing if some of the elements in the plant have a palliative effect on the symptoms of the ailment.

Herbal remedies have formed the basis of traditional medicine for millennia, and have formed the root of modern pharmacology. While science from roughly the 1880's onwards has striven to isolate the active compounds found in medicinal herbs, the list is ever growing

Among the healing agents isolated from herbal remedies are salicylic acid (aspirin), derived from white willow bark, the vincristine series of anticancer agents, derived from periwinkle, several stimulants (such as ephedra and cocaine) and several analgesics and paralytics (such as morphine, a tincture of the opium poppy).

As medical science has delved into molecular biology, and the ways these compounds work has been explored, validation for a number of types of herbal remedies have been found, including phytochemicals used as anti-oxidants, and the benefits of various vitamins for the body, and the use of Echinacea to boost white blood cell counts for fighting off disease.

History of Herbal Medicine

Quite possibly the earliest form of herbal medicine was marshmallow root, which is a common grass chewed for settling an upset stomach, and has been eaten for (presumably) that reason by our closest evolutionary cousins, chimpanzees and bonobos. Likewise, hyacinth (a diuretic) causes the tissues to give up excess water, is rich in tannins and alkaloids, which have a bitter, or pungent taste.

As tribal human societies grew, a small body of knowledge over what plants were beneficial for what ailments grew, until the role of a tribal herb lore specialist became known; often times, in hunter-gatherer societies, this herbalist carries a lot of weight in the day to day running of the tribe.

As human societies shifted to an agronomical view of the world, the cultivation of plants for medicine was an important role in this; eventually, herbal lore and herbal remedies became codified, first with the Egyptians, then with the Greeks in the Western tradition, and the knowledge base was slowly accumulated upon by the Romans. It's from the Greeks in particular that the foundation of modern medicine - of not just prescribing a treatment, but recording what the treatment was, and what its impact was, got started.

In India, the herbalist tradition was Ayurvedic, focusing on the use of metals, herbs and parts of animals generally considered inedible, prepared in solution. These herbs and other compounds are used in varying proportions to remedy specific ills, and may be applied internally as pills or infusions, topically as ointments, inhaled as smoke, or pressed to the body as powders.

In the Americas, without a written tradition to work from, most herbalism is carried by oral traditions from various tribes; this has proven invaluable when looking for herbal remedies in the rain forests and Andean uplands. Much of the American herbal tradition is tied to shamanism and spiritualism.

In China, herbalism and herbal remedies were used as an adjunct to acupuncture, and the medical morphology in use is of balancing qui or chi, the life force energies, which have yin and yang elements; in Chinese herbalism, the aim is to bring the systems of the body, treating it as an electrical system, back into balance, which is a tactic commonly expressed in modern, or syncretic herbalism.

Herbal Medicine Today

Modern herbal medicine takes a syncretic approach, trying to cross reference the benefits of various herbs and treatments from different traditions, and find the best combination of herbal remedies. It's estimated that upwards of three quarters of the people on the planet use herbal medicine as part of their primary health care regimen. Furthermore, it's estimated that nearly three quarters of all naturally derived medicines are used in ways conforming to their herbal component's or antecedents traditional use, and somewhere close to one third of all medical research begins with botanical research of samples collected from rain forests and other biomes.

Most traditional herbs are aromatics - the compounds we use to treat illness are an effect of plants conducting chemical warfare on each other and to fend off herbivores. The same compounds that make many herbs bitter or smell strongly are the ones used in herbal medicine and clinical trials.

While there are countless claims that herbal remedies have "no side effect", this is not the case; it's more than the side effects cannot be attributed to one compound in the herbal repertoire, and sometimes this leads to dangers - for example, cochinea was used to treat gout (rheumatoid arthritis, and a number of related symptoms), but also has severe side effects on the function of the kidneys and liver, as it's a slow, cumulative toxin. The primary difference in side effects between herbal remedies and those listed in the Physician's Desk Reference is that the Physician's Desk Reference has double blind studies listing what dosages cause which side effects, while many herbal remedies lack this benchmark. That being said, most traditional therapeutic doses of herbal remedies are small enough to avoid the worst side effects. (Whether some herbs have their effect from the placebo effect is also open to dispute.)

While herbal remedies can be beneficial, do understand that they are not an either-or proposition with modern medicine, though there is a strong establishment precedent for treating them that way - up until the early part of this century, most of the remedies prescribed by doctors were herbal and natural remedies. Do consult with your health care provider about possible interactions between herbal remedies and prescription drugs.

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