Many of the medicines our ancestors found highly effective in the
treatments of many different illnesses were various types of herbal
medicine, and there are millions of people in the world today that
prefer herbal medications over the modern day pharmaceuticals. Herbal
medicine is often called botanical medicine, phytotherapy, or herbalism
and it is also the oldest form of medicine known to man. In the past
many of the Indian tribes worldwide discovered many of the medicinal
properties of all kinds of plants in their environment. They also found
many other uses of plants that they used for all kinds of things
including constructing shelter, food, and clothing. Herbal medicine has
been traced many thousands of years into the past before the American
Indians were using it, and there has been evidence of herbalism in cave
paintings in France that have been traced to have been drawn somewhere
between 13,000 and 25,000 B.C.
There are a small percentage of
modern pharmaceuticals as well that are based solely off of herbal
medicine and when pharmacists are going to school they also studying
many of the aspects of herbalism. Every pharmacy you go into nowadays
will also have a whole section of different herbal supplements, but
sometimes many of these are processed using chemicals so many true
herbalists prefer the whole plant when they are setting up an herbal
medicine treatment program for a patient. Most herbs and plants have
many different properties that will aid your body in more than one way.
After hearing some of the horror stories about certain modern day
medications in the media there are more and more people that are
looking into different kinds of botanical medications. Some of the best
ways to take many herbal medications is by drinking them in teas or
using the natural extracts of the plant as oil or even a balm.