EDITORIAL: HERBAL MEDICINE

Abstract

If one were to telescope the entire human history into twenty-four hours, the last 2000 years (since the birth of Christ) would be represented by the last 40 seconds, while the modern medicine era (orthodox medicine) would be represented by less than 2 seconds. Yet, few of us can imagine the practice of medicine 100 years ago, when over 95 % of drugs in current use had not been discovered and people had to rely on natural products, mostly herbs. Herbal medicine and witchcraft or Voodoo practices represent the acceptable and the ugly face of traditional medicine practices, respectively. In between, there are many gray areas. A lot of herbs used by early man have had their medicinal properties confirmed. The list is too long to enumerate here. Early man believed that the benevolent Creator had placed a cure for each ailment afflicting him within easy reach but challenged him to discover which ones had medicinal values and which ones were harmful. One of the methods used to discover medicinal herbs was what came to be known as “the Doctrine of Signatures” where physical characteristics (such as colour and shape) were considered indicative of medicinal value. In this way the Rauwolfian root (snake root) was used for snakebites while Chenopodium (worm seed) was used for helminth infestations. When Eve prompted Adam to eat the purple, heart-shaped apple in the Garden of Eden, she was responding to this imperative.