For thousands of years, ancient civilizations have used plants and plant extracts because they recognize their powerful healing properties. The ancient Egyptians for instance, used willow bark tea to reduce fevers and relieve headaches. With passing time, scientists made the discovery that the willow bark contains salicylic acid, the active ingredient in aspirin.
• A Sumerian clay tablet, said to be about 4000 years old, recorded herbal remedies for a variety of illnesses and is the oldest known medical document.
• The 3500 year old, ancient Egyptian Ebers papyrus, lists hundreds of herbal remedies.
• The Pun-tsao which is attributed to Shen-nung, China’s legendary Emperor, who lived 4500 years ago, contains thousands of herbal cures .
• In India, herbal medicine dates back several thousand years to the Rig-Veda, the collection of Hindu sacred verses.
• The Badianus Manuscript is an illustrated document that reports the traditional medical knowledge of the Aztecs.
Greek physician Hippocrates is known as the father of western medicine and the greatest physician of his time. Hippocrates believed that disease had its roots in natural causes and as a result used a variety of herbal remedies in his treatments. He also believed in the natural healing process of rest, a good diet, fresh air and cleanliness.
Pedanius Dioscorides, another Greek physician, pharmacologist and botanist, is the author of “De Materia Medica” or simply “The Dioscorides” — a 5-volume encyclopedia about herbal medicine and related medicinal substances, which was the basic textbook for all Western physicians for more than 1700 years. The distribution of this encyclopedia was said to be exceeded only by the Bible. It served as a manual, in which useful plants and remedies for each disease could be looked up.
Because of new innovation and developments in chemical science, coupled with the founding of pharmacology (the science of drugs), from the eighteenth century onwards, Doctors began to replace their plant-based remedies, according to The Dioscorides, with prescriptions based on chemical derivatives extracted from plants.
With the discovery and isolation of the active principles of plants, the substitution of the old plant-based prescriptions with them became a flourishing idea. Pure substances were more powerful, easier to prescribe, because they could be administered in the form of capsules or pills.
The success of chemical drugs caused natural remedies to almost be forgotten until recently. However, the excitement of chemical drug success would not last very long. Despite its seemingly early success, the more powerful antibiotics have failed to end infectious diseases. While, I agree that these substances have been able to save many lives, it is also true that allergies, resistance and many undesirable effects have increased.
In addition, due to the escalating cost of health-care and prescription drugs, and the very serious and often times life threatening side-effects of so many of the chemical drugs on the market, it is understandable why so many people are turning back to herbal remedies and what the “old folks” use to know.
In my next post, we will look at getting back to nature. STAY TUNED!
