Herbalism

Herbalism- a treatment system which is probably as old as mankind itself. The ancient Greeks and Romans were practitioner of herbal medicine and much of their knowledge was been passed on throughout their empires. Two more cultures which have always relied very heavily on herbal medicine are the Chinese and the Indians and, to this day, China herbs play a vital part in health care.

Primitive tribes still use their traditional knowledge of plants and their healing properties and, in early civilisations, food and medicine were closely linked together, as many plants were eaten for their health-giving properties.

Monasteries

In Britain, from the Dark Ages well into medieval times, herbals were painstakingly hand-copied in the monasteries, each of which had its own physic garden for growing herbs to treat both monks and local people. In rural areas, particularly in the west and Wales, the Druids are believed to have had an oral tradition of herbal medicine, mixing medicine with mysticism and rituals.

Holistic

The herbalist adopts the perspective of regarding the patient as a diseased person, requiring a holistic treatment, as opposed to the standard medical practice of seeing the patient as the carrier of a disease, Secondly, the medical herbalist uses whole plants or plant products containing active constituents, while doctors use these constituents in refined and isolated forms or synthetics.

Herbalists see themselves as having become more scientifically minded in their research, so a new word has been coined to described their work: phytotherapy, from the Greek words phyton, meaning 'plant', and therapeuein, 'to take care of, to heal'.