Herbal Medicine is the study or use of medicinal herbs to prevent and treat diseases and ailments or to promote health and healing. Herbal Medicine is a major component in all traditional medical systems. Ingredients often included plants, fungi, shells, animals and minerals. In the hands of experience and skilled herbalists, herbs can be safely and effectively used to treat many conditions and diseases. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 80 percent of the world’s population presently uses herbal medicine for some aspect of primary health care (http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs134/en/).
History
Plants have been used for medicinal purposes for as long as history has been recorded. There is evidence from the Sharnidar Cave in Iraq that suggests Neanderthals living 60,000 years ago used medicinal plants. A body that was unearthed there had been buried with eight species of plants which are still widely used in folk medicine around the world (Medicinal plants in a Middle Paleolithic grave ShanidarIV?, Lietava J., J Ethnopharmacol. 1992 Jan;35(3):263-6., PMID 1548898).
Many of the pharmaceuticals currently available to physicians have a long history of use as herbal remedies, including opium, aspirin, digitalis and quinine. In fact, at least 7,000 of medical compounds in the modern medicine are derived from plants sources (Summary Report for the European Union, 2000-2005, QLK5-CT-2000-00111). The majority of these medicinal plants came to the attention of researchers because of their use in traditional medicine (Summary Report for the European Union, 2000-2005, QLK5-CT-2000-00111).
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