Herbal remedies, western

Encyclopedia of Medicine, Apr 06, 2001 by Leonard C. Bruno

Herbal remedies involve the use of plants as medicines to restore and maintain health.

Herbal remedies are employed in the western world by practitioners of holistic medicine who believe that all individuals possess an inner vital force that is constantly working to maintain physical, emotional, and mental health. Although they do not discount the germ theory of disease held by conventional western medicine, medical herbalists in the western world say that this theory does not fully explain why people become ill. They argue that many diseases and conditions come about because the individual's inner force or natural immune system is weakened or out of balance. Therefore, they prescribe herbal or plant remedies that are found in nature in order to return an individual's natural inner balance, strengthen the resistance to disease, and maintain good health.

Herbal remedies can be dangerous and must be treated with respect. Some of the most potent and toxic chemicals come from plants. Simply because something is described as "natural" does not mean that it cannot have serious side effects. While most commonly used herbal remedies are safe, it is best to obtain the advice of a well-trained practitioner before using any plant-based medication that is not well known, especially since herbals may interact with conventional drugs. Further, it is important to use herbal remedies correctly and stick to the prescribed doses. It should also be recognized that the sale of herbals in the United States is largely unregulated, and consumers cannot be certain of their quality.

The origins of western herbal remedies are found at least as far back as 3000 B.C. in the ancient civilization of Egypt. Herbal remedies were also used in ancient Greece, Rome, and the Middle East. After the arrival of Columbus, many New World plants became available to Europeans, and by the time of Henry VIII in England (1491-1547), an entire European or western medical system that blended plant use and astrology had developed. For centuries, medicine in the West meant herbal medicine. It is only since World War II that the West relied on anything but natural plants to cure its ills. Since then however, modern medicine with its synthetic drugs and high technology has become so dominant that herbal cures are almost totally eclipsed. At the approach of a new millennium, however, herbal remedies are undergoing a renaissance in the West, and are beginning to be accepted as, at least, complementary to conventional medicine.

This resurgence in the West of herbal remedies has many understandable causes. First among these may be the impersonal nature of modern medicine as it is often practiced. Many patients feel alienated by their physicians, who do not always seem to treat them as individuals. This alienation is compounded by the often extreme costs of high-tech medicine. Further, many synthetic drugs have adverse side effects, or have been overused to the point of no longer being effective. Increasingly, western herbal medicine offers an attractive alternative to many people. In 1995, herbal products totaled an estimated $2 billion in sales in the United States alone. Much of this popularity is attributable not only to a belief in the effectiveness of herbals, but also because of herbal medicine's holistic emphasis, its respect for the individual, and its emphasis on self-help. The practice of herbal medicine fits in well with the sentiment of people wishing to take charge of their own lives.

Such intangible aspects as these appear to have as much to do with the resurgence in the West of herbalism as the effectiveness of its remedies. The principles upon which herbal medicine is based are therefore important to at least consider. First among these is its great concern for the uniqueness of the individual. As an established value of holistic medicine in general, this notion differs from conventional medicine, which uses a single drug to treat a single disease. On the contrary, herbal medicine tailors the remedy to meet the many and varied needs of the individual, resulting in the possibility that two people with the same medical condition may receive two very different herbal prescriptions. Second, herbalists see a person's symptoms as an indication that his or her body is struggling to restore its natural inner balance, upon which--they argue--all self-healing is based. Herbal remedies are therefore prescribed to restore that natural balance and allow the body to work its own way back to health. Thus the person who takes an herbal remedy should not always expect to see all symptoms disappear immediately, since the natural medicine is intended rather to support the body's systems. The proper functioning body will then remedy the symptoms.

Another aspect of western herbal remedies that makes their practice very different from the conventional pharmacology of modern medicine is the fact that it involves not simply a single, chemical constituent, but, rather, the entire plant. This "whole plant" philosophy can begin to be better understood by considering the notion that a single plant is greater than the sum of its parts. Because any plant is literally made up of hundreds, if not thousands, of different chemicals that interact in a highly complex manner, a herbal medication cannot be reduced to the simple isolation of a certain plant's active constituent or major ingredient. This phenomenon is known as synergism, which means, in this context, the effect produced by all of a plant's constituent parts working and combining together. It is exactly this frustratingly complex phenomenon that makes herbal medicine so difficult for conventionally trained health professionals to accept. The important point here is that an herbal remedy cannot be reduced to a simple list of its active constituents.