How would you react if your doctor were to prescribe a poultice to treat your congestion? What if she handed you a mixture of leaves and bark for your fever? And instead of a prescription, she handed you a pouch of herbs to brew into a tea for your cough?
In the wild, animals use their instincts to seek out and eat healing herbs to help them when they are sick. Chimpanzees and bonobos chew a common grass called marshmallow root to settle an upset stomach. This possibly denotes the earliest form of herbal medicine.
Before the days of the corner pharmacy, the practice of herbal medicine and its practitioners, and herbalists were quite common. Every culture around the globe has practiced herbal medicine in one form or another. The relationship between living plants and healing medications goes back to the very beginning of medicine itself; dating back to 3700 B.C. in Egypt, followed by the Chinese and later by the Greeks and Romans.
In the early, frontier days, when the majority of settlers were cut off from physicians and any formal, medical care, time-honored folk medicine traditions were used. Even after new and better treatments were available, settlers continued to cling to those folk remedies. Many of those remedies survived well into the twentieth century and even now are a part of the home treatments used in remote areas.
The belief among the early settlers seemed to be that the more distasteful a concoction was, the more effective it would be. Some of their remedies are still used today in medicines which have been patented; such as wild cherry bark for cough medicine.
Many plants provided the basic ingredients used in the preparation of medicines and remedies.
White and black willow leaves and bark were made into a tea to break up a fever. Willow has an abundance of salicylic acid-aspirin.
Red cedar leaves and twigs were boiled and inhaled for bronchitis.
Sassafras, horehound, catnip, and pennyroyal were brewed into teas and used to treat coughs and colds.
Pitch from the white pine was used to heal wounds and sores.
Powdered bark of the hemlock was used to stop the bleeding from a cut.
Tannin in the bark of the hemlock was used for burns.
Rhododendron oil was used to treat rheumatism.
Cooked pine needles were used for a toothache.
Poultices were also held in high regard. Mustard plasters were used to break congestion. A poultice containing jimson weed and yarrow was placed on wounds to draw out infection.
Early in the 19th century chemical analysis became available to scientists. They began to extract and modify the active ingredients from plants. Chemists later began making their own versions of plant compounds. This began the transition from raw herbs to synthetic pharmaceuticals. As time passed, with pharmaceuticals becoming more popular, the use of herbal medicines declined. Today, 25% of all of our medications originate from chemicals developed by nature.
There are natural remedies for many conditions such as acne, eczema, rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, hay fever, chronic fatigue, migraines, and many others. Even more serious illnesses have responded to natural alternatives.
ADHD can be treated using herbs such as ginkgo biloba, scutellaria, German chamomile, lobelia and hawthorn.
Anxiety remedies include catnip, fennel, hops, motherwort and essential oils such as lavender, sandalwood and bergamot.
Depression can be treated with natural remedies such as St. John's Wort and Ginkgo.
Aloe Vera is a common plant found in many homes. Aloe can be used for burn healing, frostbite, sunburn, wound healing, psoriasis, and radiation-induced skin reactions. It also has oral uses which are beneficial in treating constipation, diabetes, ulcers, and even Crohn's disease.
