Beliefs




Herbalists tend to use extracts from parts of plants, such as the roots or leaves, believing that plants are subject to environmental pressures and therefore develop resistance to threats such as radiation, reactive oxygen species and microbial attack in order to survive, providing defensive phytochemicals of use in herbalism.

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Paraherbalism

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Paraherbalism is the pseudoscientific use of extracts of plant or animal origin as supposed medicines or health-promoting agents. Phytotherapy differs from plant-derived medicines in standard pharmacology because it does not isolate and standardize the compounds from a given plant believed to be biologically active. It relies on the false belief that preserving the complexity of substances from a given plant with less processing is safer and potentially more effective, for which there is no evidence either condition applies. Phytochemical researcher Varro Eugene Tyler described paraherbalism as "faulty or inferior herbalism based on pseudoscience", using scientific terminology but lacking scientific evidence for safety and efficacy. Tyler listed ten fallacies that distinguished herbalism from paraherbalism, including claims that there is a conspiracy to suppress safe and effective herbs, herbs can not cause harm, that whole herbs are more effective than molecules isolated f...
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Traditional systems

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Africa edit Up to 80% of the population in Africa uses traditional medicine as primary health care. Americas edit Native Americans medicinally used about 2,500 of the approximately 20,000 plant species that are native to North America. China edit Some researchers trained in both Western and traditional Chinese medicine have attempted to deconstruct ancient medical texts in the light of modern science. In 1972, Tu Youyou, a pharmaceutical chemist, extracted the anti-malarial drug artemisinin from sweet wormwood, a traditional Chinese treatment for intermittent fevers. India edit In India, Ayurvedic medicine has quite complex formulas with 30 or more ingredients, including a sizable number of ingredients that have undergone "alchemical processing", chosen to balance dosha. In Ladakh, Lahul-Spiti and Tibet, the Tibetan Medical System is prevalent, also called the 'Amichi Medical System'. Over 337 species of medicinal plants have been documented by C.P. Kala. Those are u...
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History

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Archaeological evidence indicates that the use of medicinal plants dates back to the Paleolithic age, approximately 60,000 years ago. Written evidence of herbal remedies dates back over 5,000 years to the Sumerians, who compiled lists of plants. Some ancient cultures wrote about plants and their medical uses in books called herbals . In ancient Egypt, herbs are mentioned in Egyptian medical papyri, depicted in tomb illustrations, or on rare occasions found in medical jars containing trace amounts of herbs. Among the oldest, lengthiest, and most important medical papyri of ancient Egypt, the Ebers Papyrus dates from about 1550 BC, and covers more than 700 compounds, mainly of plant origin. The earliest known Greek herbals came from Theophrastus of Eresos who, in the 4th century BC, wrote in Greek Historia Plantarum , from Diocles of Carystus who wrote during the 3rd century BC, and from Krateuas who wrote in the 1st century BC. Only a few fragments of these works have survived intact, b...
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