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HEALTH AND HEALING THROUGH PLANTS AND HERBS
...herbalism. Health and healing through wise ways with herbs and plants
Don’t be put off by the ‘ism’. Humanity’s oldest form of medicine might sound like the sort of mystic carry-on that involves a cauldron and possibly some chanting, but for many of us it is an everyday part of 21st-century life.
Every time we sip peppermint tea to ease an overindulged stomach or dab tea-tree lotion onto an unwelcome blemish, we are practising herbalism – harnessing the medicinal properties of plants to heal the body and soothe the mind.
We’ve been foraging for natural remedies since Paleolithic times, and the first written herbals – lists of plants and their medicinal uses – date back many thousands of years to the ancient civilisations of Mesopotamia (modern- day Iraq and Kuwait), China and Egypt. Greek and Roman herbalists spread their knowledge across the Roman Empire; their herbals were the definitive medical texts until the Middle Ages, when the invention of the printing press allowed knowledge to pass from monasteries, palaces and universities to ordinary people.
When the radical English herbalist and botanist Nicholas Culpeper published his
Complete Herbal in 1653, his aim was to give laypeople the knowledge to heal themselves rather than relying on expensive physicians.
His democratic philosophy still underpins modern- day herbalism, which is based on the sharing of knowledge between generations and cultures.
Thanks to the writings and bloggings of today’s practitioners (see below), we can all assemble (or grow) our own herbal medical chests and first-aid kits at very little cost. A word of warning though: some herbs interact with conventional medicines to adverse effect – St John’s Wort, an established herbal remedy for mild depression, can reduce the effectiveness of oral contraceptives and prolong the effects of sleeping pills, for example.
It is best to consult a trained herbalist before taking any herbal medicines, and always tell your GP, too.