Herbal Medicine

Perhaps when the ancient man felt pain or had some bodily harm or injuries, he sought to treat it by something he could find in his surrounding environment. Using different parts of plants such as leaves, seeds, fruits, roots etc as remedies has been known long before recorded history. Ancient civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, China and India recorded large bodies of herbal medicinal knowledge. In fact most treatment practices were based on prescribing plant products sometimes raw and other times concocted. As a result of continuing historical development medical systems such as Ayurveda emerged and so did the Chinese Medicine. The amazing thing is that different cultures which were separated by long distances and time have arrived at using the same plant products for the same purposes. And even in less developed cultures such as the indigenous African and Native American relied on herbs as medicine plus of course other magical and mythical practices.

When medicine was first produced in laboratories in the early 19th century, with the advance in chemical analysis, scientists extracted from the plants the medicinal substances and mixed it with non-plant substances. With the knowledge of chemical components and structure of plant substances, scientists went later to get the compounds from chemicals source rather than from plants. And so the source of drug now is chemical rather than plant substances. The convenience of having cheap drugs in tablets or other forms has led to the decline of herbal medicine in the last two centuries.

Yet still, that may only seem evident in large urbanized centers in the industrialized countries. According to the World Health Organization, 80% of the world population still depend on herbal medicines. This may be more true in developing countries and especially in their rural areas in China, India and other Asian, Africa and Latin American countries. But still in industrialized countries herbal medicine is not totally extinct. In Germany, 70% of physicians still prescribe herbal plant-based medicine though there are only 600 to 700 of such medicines. Since 20 years ago, there seems to be an increasing interest in herbal medicine in industrialized counties such as the United States. It may be an expression of dissatisfaction with the prescribed drugs which are heavily chemical, expensive and may not produce the desired results. However, there is also a trend towards nature and some people think nature offer remedies in its plants.

References :
Steven D. Ehrlich.(2009).Herbal medicine[Online]. Available:http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/herbal-medicine-000351.htm [2011,April].