Herbal Medicine

Herbal remedies are becoming more and more popular. The World Health
Organisation states that 80% of the worlds population that 40 billion
people have natural remedies as their primary health care. The over
prescription of antibiotics has aided the revival of herbal remedies as
more and more people turn away from traditional medicines.


Herbal medicine is
the oldest form of health care known to mankind. Herbs have been used
in all cultures and form an integral part of modern civilisation. Cave men
studied the effects on animals when they ate certain plants and through
trial and error each tribe will have added the medicinal powers of herbs
to their own knowledge base. They systematically collected information
on plants and herbs and developed well defined pharmacopoeias.

In the 20th century much has been learned from the herbal lore of native
peoples and much of the scientific medicine has been derived from this
lore. Many of the drugs used today are derived from plant material in fact
about 25% of the prescription drugs issued today in the US contain at
less one ingredient that has been derived from plant material. For example
the powdered leaf of the foxglove plant is known as the cardiac stimulant
digitalis which keeps millions of heart patients alive worldwide. St Johns
Wort has become very popular as an alternative to Prozac, without the
side effects, to help with mid depression.

The World Health Organisation noted that of about 120 plant-dervived
pharmaceutical medicines around 74% are used in modern medicine in
ways that directly correlate to their traditional uses by native cultures.
Extensive research is currently being carried out by major pharmaceutical
companies on plant material collected from rainforests and other places
to test, their medicinal value.