Native Healers. Anita Ralph
of the Americas, and the ideas of that time, led to a divergence from conventional medical practice that continues to this day. This divergence is still undergoing change with our ever-greater understanding of Eastern traditional medical systems, combined with an evolving acknowledgement of the importance of psychological health. New concepts of complexity in biology and modern discoveries in physiology are also informing the modern herbalist's practice today.
As scientific knowledge has increased, and as biomedical research has focussed on the search for new single-chemical drugs isolated from natural substances, ancient ideas about illness and the plants originally used to treat illness, have been largely discarded by modern medicine. The 20th century saw the steady, and all but complete, removal of once official plant medicines from the British pharmacopoeia by 1980. Subjects concerned with the nature and effects of these phytomedicines died out as well, without having been tended to and updated, and because this was before the age of the internet, formerly officially accepted knowledge about phytotherapy remains largely inaccessible to modern biomedical practitioners.
Much of Western herbal medicine is therefore based on empirical knowledge, and most modern herbalists acknowledge that historical ideas about health and disease can either seem out-dated or incompatible with conventional biomedicine. It is important to remember, however, that traditional concepts and ideas of health and disease were based on pre-modern descriptions of what was experienced, and reflected the extent of accepted knowledge of the time. Phenomenologically, these ideas are describing something useful. The use of plants was observed and recorded by people in much closer contact with the natural world than we can perhaps imagine today…
It was empirical observation that led to plants being developed into drugs used in pain relief and surgical anaesthesia, such as belladonna (Atropa belladonna L.) for atropine eye drops used in eye surgery; opiates—alkaloids found in opium poppy (Papaver somniferum L.); and curare (Chondrodendron tomentosum Ruiz & Pav.)—which acts by blocking the action of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine at neuromuscular junctions allowing surgery to take place more easily whilst a patient is anaesthetised. The recent history of conventional biomedicine is full of doctors (and others) testing substances on themselves. Chemicals, plants and hormones were all examined in this way, and this form of experimentation helped our eventual understanding of their nature and mechanisms, as well as occasionally producing the odd medical charlatan who could temporarily cash-in on this.
Some traditional ‘folk’ remedies were adopted by conventional medicine and became synthesised into drugs. The discovery that the foxglove plant (Digitalis purpurea L.) could have benefits for patients with heart problems was attributed to William Withering, who had a patient who had been helped by a local traditional healer in Staffordshire, England. He studied one of the herbs in her recipe (a species of Digitalis), identified cardiac alkaloids and developed these into what later became digoxin, a drug still used today.4 Dr Withering of course was lucky enough to be wealthy and educated: the female traditional healer (we don't know her name), not being granted either wealth nor a right to education due to gender, was developing her empirical knowledge nevertheless.5
It is our hope that, like that native healer from whom Dr Withering found inspiration, this book will enable you to develop your own empirical knowledge of plant medicines, and bring those healing benefits into the lives of yourselves and those dear to you.
References
1Engel, C., How Animals Keep Themselves Well And How We Can Learn From Them. 2003: Phoenix Press.
2Hardy K. et al., Neanderthal medics? Evidence for food, cooking and medicinal plants entrapped in dental calculus. Naturwissenschaften—The Science of Nature, 2012.
3Mills, S., Out Of The Earth: The Essential Book of Herbal Medicine. 1991: Penguin Books.
4Griggs, B., Green Pharmacy: The Story of Western Herbal Medicine. 1997: Vermillion.
5Brooke, E., Women Healers Through History. 1993: The Women's Press.
Blackberry (Rubus fructicosa L.) Illustration from the Vienna Dioscurides, early 6th Century.
CHAPTER ONE
Drawing from the deep pool: the history, scope and core principles of herbal medicine in the West
History and origins
As stated in the introduction, the origins of herbal medicine worldwide have an unknown lineage into archaic time and in other-than-human-beings. It is with the development of writing that ideas about health and disease, and the plants used as medicines, began to be recorded from oral traditions. Western herbal medicine, as practised by modern herbalists and members of the National Institute of Medical Herbalists today, has an eclectic and global heritage. Starting with information from oral cultures such as Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt and beyond; concepts, theories and practical medicine of ancient times eventually became written texts.1 The Roman Empire enabled the spread of these texts, and the collection of new ideas. Romanised physicians such as Dioscorides wrote their own works on medicine and the practical application of medicinal plants and of surgery. Pedianus Dioscorides (c. 40–90 CE) was originally from Greece, and his most famous work De Materia Medica was a precursor to modern pharmacopoeias (a technical book identifying and describing the preparation and use of medicines).
The ancient Greeks and Romans hailed the source of inspiration and knowledge of healing as coming from the Ancient Greek god Asclepius. It is thought by some scholars that Asclepius, also known as Thoth or Hermes Trismegistus could be based on the Ancient Egyptian architect Imhotep, although there is no evidence that he was a physician. Hiero-glyphic carvings from Imhotep's stepped pyramid at Saqqara however state that Merit-Ptah was the ‘chief physician’, and so she would have existed about 2700 bce, making her possibly the earliest recorded female physician.2
The Arabic scholars of the 9th–11th centuries then revived many of these texts, providing us with copies of works by Hippocrates and Galen, for example. Many of these Arab physicians, including people such as Avicenna, added to this information, practised medicine and surgery, and formed medical schools and hospitals that were very advanced for their time. Their work translating and adding to ancient texts meant that the knowledge and written work was picked up by the monastic traditions, copied and practised by monks and nuns (such as Hildegard of Bingen), and it also found its way to the original and first universities of Europe (and to medical practitioners of that time such as Trotula).
Works copied into Latin by monasteries and also new works from the early universities have allowed very ancient texts (such as Hippocrates and Dioscorides) to survive today in the form of ‘herbals’, eventually being written in the English language (a key purpose of Nicholas Culpeper). Each culture left its mark on the work, so that many copies of the same book exist—in different languages and with slight variations.
Let's look at some of the key people from the history of Western herbal medicine.
Hippocrates c. 460–377 BCE was the son of a Greek physician, who, at that time were part of the rhizotomi or root gatherers. Rhizotomi were also known as Asclepiadiae after Aesclepius the Greek god of medicine (see above). Hippocrates is probably the most famous of all the Ancient Greek physicians and is known to this day as the father of medicine. The Hippocratic oath was named after him.
A number of different texts on medicine were originally ascribed to Hippocrates, but are now believed to have been written and edited by at least two different authors over approximately two centuries.
Texts include:
Ancient medicine: This text emphasises the importance of balance within the body, and how essential it is to health. This is a forerunner to the modern-day concept of homeostasis in the body.
Airs,