Plants have always been a part of life for human beings either as foods or as medicines. The art of healing human beings with herbs is not new and was used as the only form of medicine up until the 20th century when scientific medicine started transforming chemicals from plants into synthetic drugs. Recently there has been an amazing raising of consciousness of what we put into our bodies, and through this new awareness, we have once again, in the West, returned to choosing natural remedies and discovering plants again. We have to remember a large majority of our neighbours around the world have consistently relied on herbs as their first source of medicine, and if you look at their use especially outside of Western countries, their use exceeds that of coventional medicine, with current estimated figures of people using herbs for their health at 80% worldwide.
Herbal medicine assists the body in its own attempts to heal itself. Each herb contains its own vast array of constituents that work synergistically to heal the body through many different ways including stimulating the “vital force” of the person or their energy-production system, aiding in cleansing and detoxifying the circulatory system and lymphatic system, and all the internal organs, and by strengthening the whole body therefore protecting it from disease by making it inhospitable to many potential infections. There should be a strong emphasis based on preventative treatment, and if we only learned to incorporate herbs into part of our daily diet, we would all experience far better health and a greater sense of vitality in our daily lives, rather then reaching for them only when we are states of crisis. This is not to say that herbs cannot be used when the body is in crisis. In fact they are wonderful for minimising symptoms of self-limiting diseases and chronic (long term) diseases, as well as helping to reducing symptoms of incurable illnesses, therefore helping the person manage their illness in a far better way.