The use of plant remedies to strengthen weakened body systems, control symptoms and boost the body’s own healing powers is perhaps the oldest form of medicine. Herbalists maintain that the natural balance of compounds in a plants provides a more effective means of restoring health than synthesised, single-ingredient drugs, as prescribed in orthodox modern medicine.
No one knows how or when people realized that planta could be used to treat desease, but herbal medicine probably developed from the use of plants as foods, partly by a system of trial and error, and partly from knowledge gained by people living close to nature that has been handed down through generations.
With the development of science , it became possible to isolate plant compounds and to determine which chemicals in a plant have particular actions. These chemicals were duplicate in laboratories to produce what we now regard as orthodox medicines. Medical research has given herbalists a wider understanding of why herbs have particular effects on the body, but this insight has not changed the way herbalist work.
Herbalist have always believed, and continue to bel;ieve, that using whole plants, which contain a huge variety of compounds, is the ideal way to help strengthen the body’s healing powers and to help restore any imbalances within the body . Although a plant may be chosen primarily for the action of one ingredient, the other compounds in plant – or in several plants in a combination remedy – may limit or enhance the main action, prevent side effects, or act in a generally nutritive way. Some herbal products contain several active compounds in an extract from the whole plant. Others contain only one or two compounds that have been isolated from the plant. A standardized extract contains known amounts of one or more active compounds.
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A healing garden In times gone by , many natural rehab centre and hopitals often run by religious orders, maintained their own herb gardens to ensure a constant supply of herbal medicines |
Related articles: Natural-Remedies-Cabinet, Natural Medicines
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