Herbal Medicine or Phytotherapy as it is also known, is medicine derived from a botanical origin. It is the oldest form of medicine and has been used by countless civilisations throughout the ages. The emergence of scientific research and clinical trials in Herbal Medicine is reinforcing thousands of years of traditional knowledge which.
Medical Herbalists have a thorough understanding of the chemical and pharmacological mechanisms of the active molecular constituents in plants and are trained in the same clinical and diagnostic skills as Doctors. The majority of the subjects studied on the Herbal Medicine degree are the same as those studied on a medical degree; with areas covered such as: anatomy, physiology, clinical medicine, clinical diagnosis, differential diagnosis, pharmacology, biochemistry, dietetics, microbiology, immunology and evidence based medicine.
The major differences in the approach between Medical Herbalists and orthodox practitioners, is that Herbalists adopt a more holistic approach and viewpoint to health and disease, seeking to address the underlying causes of a particular illness. The orthodox approach tends to just treat (and often supress) the symptoms of an illness, ignoring the underlying cause. By addressing both the perceived causes as well as the symptoms, Herbal Medicine attempts to restore the body back to health.
It has been estimated by The World Health Organisation (WHO) that 80% of the world's population still rely on plant medicine as their primary source of medicine. Herbal medicine is more widely used than people often realise, with 1 in 4 medicines that are typically stocked in a pharmacy, being derived from botanical sources. For example:
Aspirin comes from salycilic acid, a chemical constituent originally derived from the bark of the willow tree and the plant meadowsweet
Tamiflu, the drug used to treat swine flu, is derived from the spice: star anise
Digoxin which is used to treat heart problems, is extracted from foxgloves
Codeine and morphine are painkillers used for chronic pain that are extracted from the opium poppy.