Herbs as medicines.

Herbs or medicative plants have a long history in treating disease. In traditional Chinese medicine, for example, the written history of flavourer medicine goes back over 2000 years and herbalists in the West have used “weeds” equally long to treat that which ails us. We are all familiar with the virtues of Garlic, Chamomile, Peppermint, Lavender, and another common herbs.

Interest in medicative herbs is on the rise once again and the interest is primarily from the pharmaceutical industry, which is always looking for ‘new drugs’ and more effective substances to treat diseases, for which there may be no or really few drugs available.

Considering the really long traditional use of flavourer medicines and the large body of evidence of their effectiveness, why is it that we are not generally bucked up to use traditional flavourer medicine, instead of synthetic, incomplete copies of herbs, called drugs, considering the millions of dollars being spent looking for these apparently elusive substances?

Herbs are considered treasures once it comes to ancient cultures and herbalists, and galore so-called weeds are worth their weight in gold. Dandelion, Comfrey, Digitalis (Foxglove), the Poppy, Milk Thistle, Stinging nettle, and galore others, have well-researched and established medicative qualities that have few if any rivals in the pharmaceutical industry. Galore of them in fact, form the bases of pharmaceutical drugs.

Research into the medicative properties of such herbs as the humble Blowball is presently being undertaken by scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, in Kew, west London, who believe it could be the source of a life-saving drug for cancer patients.

Early tests suggest that it could hold the key to warding off cancer, which kills tens of thousands of folk every year.

Their activity on the cancer-beating properties of the dandelion, which besides has a history of being used to treat warts, is part of a more larger project to examine the natural medicative properties of scores of British plants and flowers.

Professor Monique Simmonds, head of the Property Uses of Plants Group at Kew, said: "We aren't indiscriminately screening plants for their potential medicative properties, we are looking at plants which we cognize have a long history of being used to treat certain medical problems.”

“We wish be examining them to find out what active compounds they contain which can treat the illness.”

Unfortunately, as is so often the case, this group of scientists appears to be looking for active ingredients, which can later be synthesised and then ready-made into pharmaceutical drugs. This is not the way herbs are used traditionally and their functions inevitably change once the active ingredients are used in isolation. That’s like expression that the only important part of a car is the engine – nothing else inevitably to be included…

So, why is there this need for analytic the ‘active ingredients’?

As a scientist, I can understand the need for the scientific process of establishing the fact that a particular herb works on a particular disease, microorganism or what ever, and the need to cognize why and how it does so. But, and this is a BIG but, as a doctor of Chinese medicine I besides understand the process of choosing and prescribing COMBINATIONS of herbs, which have a synergistic effect to treat not simply the disease, but any underlying condition as well as the person with the unwellness – That is a big difference and not one that is easily tested exploitation standard scientific methodologies.

Using anecdotal evidence, which after all has a history of thousands of years, seems to escape my honoured colleagues all together. Rather than trying to isolate the active ingredient(s), why not test these herbs, utilising the cognition of professional herbalists, on patients in vivo, exploitation the myriad of technology accessible to researchers and medical diagnosticians to see how and why these herbs activity in living, breathing patients, rather than in a test tube or on laboratory rats and mice (which, by the way, are not humans and have a different, though several what similar, physiology to us…).

I suspect, that among the reasons for not following the above procedure is that the pharmaceutical companies are not actually interested in the effects of the medicative plants as a whole, but rather in whether they can isolate a therapeutic substance which can then be factory-made cheaply and marketed as a new drug - and of course that’s wherever the money is…

The problem with this approach is however, that medicative plants like Comfrey, Blowball and another herbs normally contain hundreds if not thousands of chemical compounds that interact, yet galore of which are not yet understood and cannot be manufactured. This is why the factory-made drugs, based on so-called active ingredients, often do not activity or produce side effects.

Aspirin is a classic case in point. Salicylic acid is the active ingredient in Acetylsalicylic acid tablets, and was 1st isolated from the bark of the White Willow tree. It is a comparatively simple compound to do synthetically, however, Acetylsalicylic acid is acknowledged for its ability to cause stomach irritation and in several cases ulceration of the stomach wall.

The flavourer extract from the bark of the White Willow tree generally does not cause stomach irritation due to other, so called ‘non-active ingredients’ contained in the bark, which function to protect the lining of the stomach thereby preventing ulceration of the stomach wall.

Ask yourself, which would-be I choose – Side effects, or no site effects? – It’s a really simple answer. Isn’t it?

So why then are flavourer medicines not used more normally and why do we have pharmaceutical impostors stuffed down our throats? The answer is, that there’s little or no money in herbs for the pharmaceutical companies. They, the herbs, have already been invented, they grow easily, they multiply promptly and for the most part, they’re freely available.

Further more, right prescribed and developed flavourer compounds generally resolve the health problem of the patient over a period of time, departure no requirement to support taking the preparation – that means no repeat sales… no in progress prescriptions… no in progress problem.

Pharmaceuticals on the another hand primarily aim to relieve symptoms – that means: in progress consultations, in progress sales, in progress health problems – which do you think is a more profitable proposition…?

Don’t get me wrong, this is not to say that all drugs are impostors or that none of the pharmaceutical drugs cure diseases or maladies – they do and several are life-preserving preparations and are without doubt invaluable. However, flavourer extracts can be likewise effective, but are not promoted and are extremely under-utilised.

The daily news is full of ‘discoveries’ of herbs found to be a possible cure of this or that, as in the example of Blowball and its possible anti-cancer properties. The point is, that these herbs need to be investigated in the correct way. They are not simply ‘an active ingredient’. They mostly have hundreds of ingredients and taking one or two in isolation is not what does medicative plants work. In addition, seldom are flavourer extracts prescribed by herbalists as singles (a preparation which utilises only one herb). Normally herbalists mix a variety of medicative plants to do a mixture, which addresses more than simply the major symptoms.

In Chinese medicine for example there is a strict order of hierarchy in any flavourer prescription, which requires appreciable depth of cognition and experience on the physicians part. The fact that the primary or principle herb has active ingredients, which has a specific physiological effect, does not mean the another herbs are not necessary in the preparation. This is a fact apparently neglected by the pharmaceutical industry in its need to manufacture new drugs that can control disease.

Knowing that medicative plants are so effective, that these plants possibly hold the key to galore diseases, are cheap and have proved their worth time and time once again over millennia, why is it that flavourer medicine is still not in the forefront of medical treatments, and is considered by galore orthodox medical professionals and pharmaceutical companies as hocus-pocus…. hmmm.

About The Author

Danny and Susan Siegenthaler have extensive experience as practitioners of Chinese medicine and as medical herbalists. They several have Bachelor of Science degrees, as well as several degrees in various modalities of alternative medicine. Together they have over 40 years of combined clinical experience and have instructed hundreds of students.

Their Website Natural Skin Care Products by Wildcrafted Flavourer Products provides information, education and genuinely natural skin and body care as well as flavourer products for everyone to enjoy – see you there.

wildcrafted.com.au