Native Healers. Anita Ralph
This sectarian medical school, at its height in the 1880s in the USA, drew from energetic theories similar to Traditional Chinese Medicine and promoted a study of the patients’ constitution and relevance of organ systems in the practice of herbal medicine.
The most resilient of the medical-botanical schools to emerge in the 19th century were the eclectic physicians founded in 1820 by Wooster Beach (1794–1868).13
The eclectic physicians introduced many American botanicals to the herbal pharmacopoeia of the UK, including echinacea (Echinacea angustifolia DC and E. purpurea (L.) Moench), wild indigo (Baptisia tinctoria (L.) R.Br.), black cohosh (Actaea racemosa L. formerly known as Cimicifuga) and golden seal (Hydrastis canadensis L.). Huge numbers of patients were treated and data about herbal interventions recorded.
John Milton Scudder MD (1829–1894) enhanced and continued the eclectic medical system. Its key features were the use of specific indications in herbal medicine practice. The patient was seen as an individual, and their unique symptoms were investigated using pulse, tongue and differential and physical diagnostics. Herbal medicines, conventional medicine, homoeopathy and hydrotherapy could be employed to help the patient.14
The history of Western herbal medicine in the UK in the 20th century is full of twists and turns. In 1941, against a backdrop of pharmaceutical ‘wonder drugs’ being continually discovered, the wartime government rushed the Pharmacy and Medicines Act onto the statute books. Overnight, members of the National Association of Medical Herbalists found that they could no longer supply herbal remedies directly to their patients. In effect it became illegal to practice as a consulting medical herbalist in the UK. Public reaction to this was generally hostile. NAMH members continued to practice and there were no prosecutions.
The 5th July 1948 is generally recognised as the birth of the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK. Its primary aim was to make healthcare available to everyone, not just to those who could afford it. Access to free healthcare, the fast-developing world of pharmaceutical companies and the accompanying enthusiasm engendered by the concept of ‘magic bullet’ medicine, and the 1941 Pharmacy and Medicines Act, all conspired to suppress the practice of Western herbal medicine in the UK.
This situation continued until 1964 when (in the wake of the thalido-mide tragedy) the newly formed British Herbal Medicines Association (formed by Frederick Fletcher Hyde and Frank Powers) was ultimately successful in overthrowing the 1941 Pharmacy and Medicines Act.
Albert Orbell FNIMH, medical herbalist and president of the NIMH in its centenary year, played a pivotal role in founding the Hospital for Natural Healing (HNH) in Stratford, E14, in 1934, and was the Chairman of the Hospital Board for most of its 40-plus years existence. A chari-table enterprise, the HNH was a most ambitious project, providing professional herbal health care to the people of London's deprived East End, regardless of their ability to pay.
The HNH also played a key role in the survival of the herbal profession in the UK during the difficult post-war years, when NIMH membership dropped to double figures. In an agreement with NIMH, the HNH provided professional training for herbal students from the 1950s until its closure in 1975. When it closed, the sale of the premises provided a substantial tranche of funds for the NIMH's Education Fund, a charity enabling the purchase of a building in Tunbridge Wells that established the School of Herbal Medicine run by Hein Zeylstra for the next 25 years or so.
Modern practitioners of herbal medicine, and members of the National Institute of Medical Herbalists, recognise the important discoveries and advancement of our understanding of the practical application of herbs due to the various American botanical movements, and their native First Nations’ teachers. Established in 1864, the National Association of Medical Herbalists (now the NIMH), still aims to use herbal medicines (in association with areas such as advice on diet and lifestyle changes) to heal and relieve suffering. The NIMH has continued to educate and provide professional membership ever since its inception. This was formalised into University-based BSc and MSc qualifications in the late 1990s, and continues as equivalent professional training to the present day.
We shall continue to treat each person as a unique entity and prescribe according to our judgement as to his needs.
—Fred Fletcher Hyde, Presidential address to the NIMH
The UK legislative provisions for herbal medicine are to be found in the Medicines Act 1968, and they were successfully prevented from being removed in 1993, and again in 2011, by, among others, the courageous and indomitable medical herbalist and past-president of the NIMH, Michael McIntyre. Although he was not successful in gaining statutory regulation for herbalists in 2017, this was at least partly because herbal medicine poses so little threat to public safety. The European Herbal and Traditional Practitioners Association founded at the request of the UK government maintains a record of political events regarding herbal practitioners via their website.
The National Institute of Medical Herbalists maintains a register and professional standards for modern medical herbalists and liaises with government bodies and departments on matters pertaining to professional herbal treatment. Although herbal medicine in the UK is legislated for, it is currently outside of National Health Service funding and is therefore sometimes misunderstood in terms of its scientific rigour and professional standards. In some ways, the state-funded NHS has created a situation where any form of healing that is not conventional biomedicine is in some way pseudo-scientific or ineffective. Different countries worldwide have their own rules on herbal medicine provision, and in many countries other forms of healing are valued and integrated, including herbal medicine and naturopathy.
Some historical sources and people who have influenced the practice of Western herbal medicine are listed below for your information:
Greco-Roman
Dioscorides 50–80 CE, Pliny the Elder c. 23–79 CE, Galen of Pergamon c. 130–200 CE, Pseudo-Asclepeius 5th century CE.
Arabic
Abn Sina (Avicenna) c. 980–1037 ce, Serapo the Younger (Ibn Wafid) 13th century.
Anglo-Saxon/late Middle Ages
The Old English Herbarium c. 1000, Macer 9th–12th century, The Salernitian Herbal 12th century, Hildegarde of Bingen 1098–1179, Physicians of Myddfai 14th–18th century.
Renaissance/early modern
Leonhart Fuchs 1501–1566, Pietro Andrea Mattioli 1501–1577, William Turner 1509–1568, Rembert Dodoens 1516–1585, Jaques D'Alechamps 1513–1588, Jean Bauhin 1541–1613, John Gerard c. 1545–1612, John Parkinson 1566–1650, Nicholas Culpeper 1616–1654.
18th-century sources
William Salmon 1710, John Quincy d. 1722, Joseph Miller d. 1748, John Hill 1714–1775, William Cullen 1710–1790.
19th-century American and British sources
Albert Isiah Coffin 1790–1866, William Fox, William Cook 1832–1899, Finley Ellingwood 1852–1920.
20th-century texts
Richard Cranfield Wren, Richard Hool, Maud Grieve 1858–after 1941, Wilhelm Pelikan 1893–1981, Rudolf Weiss 1895–1991, The National Botanic Pharmacopoeia 1921, Albert Priest and Lilian Priest, British Herbal Pharmacopoeia 1983, Thomas Bartram 1913–2009.
21st-century texts
Julian Barker, Kerry Bone, Dr Mary Bove, Peter Bradley, Andrew Chevallier, Alison Denham, Graeme Tobyn, Midge Whitelegg, David Hoffman, Elizabeth Williamson, Christopher Menzies-Trull, Simon Mills, Aviva Romm, Ruth Tricky and Matthew Wood.
Key concepts of Western herbal medicine
Medical herbalists study conventional medical science, but they also study and practice using key principles and concepts distinct from conventional medical thinking today. Herbalists study a functional and ecological approach to health and disease that informs their