Herbal medicine is the science of using botanical remedies to treat illness
or enhance well-being. It is an ancient science that laid the foundations
for modern medicine.
More than 2,000 years ago, Hippocrates wrote extensively about herbal
medicine and healing. Dioscordies, a Greek surgeon in Nero’s army
(54 - 68 AD), described more than 600 plants in his extensive De Materia
Medica. Galen (131-210 AD) instituted an elaborate system of herbal polypharmacy,
and the term ‘galenicals’ is still used today to describe
herbal samples.
Up until the late 1800s, drug preparations were primarily made of flowers,
leaves and roots. In 1850, 80 per cent of the medicines use in Europe
and the US derived from plants. But by the end of the 19th century, pharmaceutical
companies began to gain a strong foothold in the field of medicine, and
drugs made from single constituents were developed.
Chemists looked for chemical compounds that could be analysed precisely
and dosed in exact milligrams, with effects that could be accurately measured
physiologically. This was often a difficult task with plants containing
hundreds of constituents. The use of herbal medicine declined sharply
after World War II with the development of new powerful drugs.
Herbal medicine has enjoyed a resurgence since the late 1960s, and scientific
research has validated the traditional uses for a number of plants.
The recent growing interest in herbal products has been helped by increased
coverage in the media and therefore increasing consumer knowledge and
a desire to find out more information. This has been also helped with
wider availablity through the Trade.