To the medical herbalist, a herb is any plant of medicinal value. There are at least 350,00 known species of plants. The Harvard taxonomic collection contains two and a half million herbarium sheets, yet we have only looked at about 10,000 plants from a medicinal point of view. It would hardly be surprising therefore to find that there are hundreds or even thousands of medicinally valuable plants of which we know nothing.

Botanic medicine or herbalism is the therapeutic system based on the use of herbs in the treatment of various conditions. Herbalism has long been known as the ‘art of simpling’. Herbs were known as simples because one herb can cure many different conditions. Herbs form the basis of many important modern pharmaceutical preparations – orthodox medicine has its roots firmly entrenched in this age old therapy, but prefers to ignore their true origins within botanic medicine.

Botanic medicine (herbal medicine) emphasizes the synergistic (1+1=3 actions) principles of herbs to assist in treatment programs which are considered holistic or vitalistic. Herbs act to detoxify the body and to eliminate waste; to strengthen the body and assist self healing; and to support the organs in the processes of regeneration. Orthodox medical treatment prefers to extract only the principle active ingredients from a herb and use this component to illicit treatment in what is termed a ‘mechanistic’ way.

Herbalists try to choose a remedy that will return the body’s balance to normal. However, many herbal medicines relieve symptoms rapidly which the patient sees as a cure. Many conditions seen today are brought about by the unbalanced and unnatural foods we eat and to which we are not adapted. They include illnesses as different as headaches, diarrhea, ulcers, infections, constipation, stomach aches, asthma, skin rashes, eczema, colds and many, many more.