Category:Herbal medicine

Herbal medicine -- also called botanical medicine or phytomedicine -- refers to using a plant's seeds, berries, roots, leaves, bark, or flowers for medicinal purposes. Herbalism has a long tradition of use outside of conventional medicine. It is becoming more mainstream as improvements in analysis and quality control along with advances in clinical research show the value of herbal medicine in the treating and preventing disease.

Herbal Medicine in History

Plants had been used for medicinal purposes long before recorded history. Ancient Chinese and Egyptian papyrus writings describe medicinal uses for plants as early as 3,000 BC. In ancient Sumeria, plant remedies for common illnesses where discovered on clay tablets. The ancient Sumerians found that certain plants had medicinal qualities and when processed correctly, they could heal illness and injuries.
In India, the Rig-Veda a sacred Hindu text lists herbal medicines and created the Ayurvedic health care system in this Asia country. Ancient China has its own list of herbal medicines compiled in the Pun-tsao text, written in the 1600s. In the New World, the Aztecs wrote texts on herbal medicines derived from their knowledge of plants they had discovered to have medicinal qualities. The Badianus Manuscripts were written in 1592 by the Aztec Martinus de la Cruz for King Charles I of Spain.
Indigenous cultures (such as African and Native American) used herbs in their healing rituals, while others developed traditional medical systems (such as Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine) in which herbal therapies were used. Researchers found that people in different parts of the world tended to use the same or similar plants for the same purposes.
In ancient Greece, Hippocrates sought herbal remedies as cures for illness and disease. Another Greek named Dioscorides collected plants during his travels with the Roman army and investigated whether they had any medicinal value. His work De Materia Medica listed 600 species of plants that had some sort of medicinal quality. The Age of Herbals, which began in 1450, brought about a revival in using plants for medicinal purposes. Authors such as John Gerard and John Parkinson wrote about the benefits of plants for medicinal purposes. Nicholas Culpepper wrote about the Doctrine of Signatures which stated that the designs or colors of a plants corresponds to human anatomy.
Today, many rural populations in the world use plants for medicinal purposes. Medicinal plants offer poorer populations the ability to combat diseases at low costs. Countries like China and India continue to teach their medical students how to use plants in order to make proven and effective medicines for their patients.