Natural Herbal Medicine From Around the World

By Amy Lea

Are you looking for natural health and beauty treatments from around the world?

 

Are you worried about daily exposure to toxic chemicals?

 

Do you want to take charge of your own health with herbal remedies?

 

If you answered yes to any of those questions, this book is your guide to herbal health and beauty remedies from around the world!

 

In this book, you'll learn about time-tested methods for healing various health problems as well as for growing luxurious locks and making your skin glow. These herbal treatments come from around the world and have been used for thousands of years to successfully treat any health problems you might have. You'll discover natural medicine for the following:

 

• Herbal remedies for digestive problems;
• Natural treatments for respiratory problems;
• Herbs that can boost your mood and help you think more clearly;
• Natural weight loss treatments;
• Herbal medicine for treating cancer.
• And, much more!

 

You'll learn about the history of herbal medicine and discover beauty treatments used by some of the world's classic beauties! Additionally, this book presents health remedies for taking care of your body naturally without chemically synthesized drugs, and these treatments have stood the test of time. Natural medicine practitioners from around the world have a collective knowledge base of thousands of years of experience using herbal remedies to treat disease and maintain health. You can benefit from their knowledge.

 

You'll discover how to keep your endocrine system healthy, what to use to grow your hair, herbs that can make your skin beautiful, and protect it from environmental contaminants, herbs that help your brain work faster and with greater clarity, and even natural remedies for the common cold!

 

What's more, these remedies come from every corner of the globe. You'll learn about herbs from various parts of Africa, Asia, Europe, India, Sri Lanka, Micronesia, North and South America, and many other locations around the world.

 

If you're ready to take charge of your health using natural, time-tested methods preferred by naturopaths from every corner of the globe, this book is for you! Get started improving your health the natural way today.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Amy Lea
• Release date: Nov 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393773382

Book preview

Chapter One:  A Little History: Herbal Medicine and Beauty Treatments Through Time

Ever since the dawn of our species, humans have been looking for ways to treat injuries and diseases as well as create beauty. The earliest humans who sought to find remedies for illnesses likely stumbled upon many of the remedies available in nature. Everything in those early days would have been based on experience. But, around 30,000 years ago, there is evidence that specialists in treating human problems began to practice their trade.

You might have heard about the famous ancient cave paintings in France that are dated to around 30,000 years ago. They seem to show imagery associated with the life of the people living in that area, like images of hunting, but they also demonstrate a number of geometric designs. These include images of spirals, curvy lines, and various other common designs. What’s interesting about these designs is that they are typical of the imagery that any human would see if they were under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs or a deep trance state.

Every single human who goes into a deep trance or uses hallucinogenic drugs to achieve an altered state will see these same geometric designs. That’s because the human brain—due to its anatomy—produces those images in such an altered state. It’s common for shamans to put themselves into a deep trance or utilize hallucinogenic drugs to access the spiritual realm as they seek help for their patients. Some archaeologists believe that these early shamans were doing just that, accessing the spiritual realm, and then, as part of the ritual, they documented what they saw on the walls of the cave.

That means that medical specialists have been seeking natural and holistic cures for at least the past 30,000 years. In that time, they have accumulated an abundance of knowledge about the natural world. At first, this information would have been passed from specialist to specialist by oral traditions and during apprenticeships, but once writing systems were invented, it became possible to document these natural treatments. Over time, the study of the effects of these natural remedies went from being descriptive to being explanatory.

Written Evidence

The earliest writing systems date to approximately 5,000 years ago, and the earliest documented, written evidence for the use of medicinal plants is just as old. A clay tablet found in Nagpur, India, contains 12 recipes for preparing drugs from over 250 various plants like poppies, henbane, and mandrake. The recipes are written in ancient Sumerian Sanskrit, one of the earliest written languages.

Around 2500 BC, the Pen TS'ao was written by the Chinese Emperor Shen Nung. The book is about roots and grasses that can be used to create some 365 drugs, many of which are still used in modern medical practice. It includes information about the following medicinal plants:

●  Rhei rhizoma treats digestive problems.

●  Camphor relieves pain, irritation, and itching.

●  Theae folium is a powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory.

●  Podophyllum is one of the main medicines for treating acute diarrhea in children.

●  The Great Yellow Gentian treats fever and digestive problems, among other maladies.

●  Ginseng is an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory herb that improves memory and mood, treats erectile dysfunction, boosts your immune system, and may even reduce the risk of certain cancers.

●  Jimson weed as an analgesic has been used as an anesthetic by Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners, and it also treats asthma and epilepsy.

●  Cinnamon Bark treats digestive problems.

●  Ephedra was used by Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners to treat asthma, bronchitis, and hay fever and has been used more recently to help with weight loss.

Many of the Indian holy books, known as Vedas (as in Ayurveda), were also written around this time, and they discuss numerous medicinal plants such as nutmeg, pepper, and clove, all of which originated in India.

Around 1550 BC, the Ebers Papyrus was written in Egypt. It contains 800 recipes for 700 plant species, including pomegranate, castor oil, aloe, senna, garlic, onion, fig, willow, coriander, juniper, and common centaury. The Bible, written between 1200 BC and the first century AD, also speaks of rituals that use plants like myrtle and incense. There are many more scripts from this timeframe that discuss the use of myriad plants for treatments of all kinds.

The most prominent writer on the use of plant drugs was Dioscorides, who is considered the father of pharmacognosy. Pharmacognosy is the study of natural sources of medicine. Dioscorides was a military physician in Nero’s Roman Army. He wrote extensively in the De Materia Medica, published in approximately 77 AD, about 944 drugs, 657 of which were developed from plants. He wrote very detailed descriptions about the appearance, locality, mode of collection, medicinal preparation, and therapeutic effects of these plants. The work is considered a classic and has been translated many times.

Perhaps the most famous Roman physician, however, was Galen (131 - 200 AD). He documented the first list of drugs that demonstrated similar or even identical actions. These are known as parallel drugs and are considered interchangeable. Additionally, he also introduced new plant drugs that Dioscorides didn’t describe. One example is Uvae ursi folium, which is still used today as a mild diuretic.

Sharing of Medical Information

In the Middle Ages, the healing arts moved to the monasteries, but the therapies were still based on medicinal plants, including such plants as sage, anise, mint, and Greek seed. By this point in time, people were beginning to explore distant lands throughout the world. In the Arab lands, they introduced many plants from countries, mostly India, with which they had established trade relations. European physicians, during this time, regularly consulted the Arab texts. These included the following:

●  De Re Medica by John Mesue (850 AD)

●  Canon Medicinae by Avicenna (980-1037)

●  Liber Magnae Collectionis Simplicum Alimentorum Et Medicamentorum by Ibn Baitar (1197-1248), which described over 1000 medicinal plants

Between 1254 and 1324, Marco Polo made numerous journeys into tropical Asia, China, and Persia. These excursions, along with the discovery of the Americas in 1492 and Vasco De Gama’s journeys to India in 1498, resulted in the exchange of valuable information regarding medicinal plants. Many of these medicinal plants were also brought to Europe as explorers returned home. That resulted in the formation of botanical gardens in various areas around Europe as physicians sought to cultivate their own domestic pharmacy of medicinal plants. Many new plants were introduced to the Old World after the discovery of the Americas, and several are still in use today. Among these are such plants as Quinine, which has been used for the treatment of malaria and is still used for its fever-reducing properties.

The Introduction of Chemically Prepared Drugs

Paracelsus (1493-1541), a Swiss physician and alchemist, was among the earliest proponents of chemically prepared drugs. He advocated for the preparation of these drugs from raw plants and mineral substances. Though he advocated for the chemical preparation of medicines, he still believed they should be collected in accordance with astrological signs. He firmly believed that God designated a sign for healing substances, and that sign indicates their application for treating diseases. As an example, haselwort has leaves that appear somewhat like a liver, and thus, this plant must be helpful for treating liver problems. St. John’s wort has leaves that look as if they have been stung, and thus, Paracelsus would argue that means it is useful for treating wounds and stings.

Once the concept of using compound drugs, as argued by Paracelsus, arose, the demand steadily increased through the Middle Ages, particularly between the 16th and 18th Centuries. Compound drugs began to use medicinal plants as well as animal substances and minerals. In the 18th Century, Carolus Linnaeus began to provide descriptions and classifications of species. He created a Latin binomial system for identifying the genus and species of specific organisms. The protocol for writing this is the genus name comes first and is capitalized, then the species’ name is second in lowercase; for example, Theae folium. This method of scientific naming became the standard for identifying plant species as well as animals, and it is still used today. Linnaeus’s naming system resulted in the categorization of plant and animal species from around the world and led to many new discoveries.

By the 19th Century, there were significant changes in the use of medicinal plants. Scientists discovered how to substantiate and isolate alkaloids from various plants, like poppies and quinine, and they also developed a technique to isolate glycosides. These discoveries marked the beginning of scientific pharmaceutical methods. As more chemical methods were introduced, other active substances were able to be isolated and later synthesized.

By the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, many medicinal plants might have been eliminated from therapies altogether, given that there was a problem stabilizing the drugs produced from them. The destructive actions of enzymes caused fundamental changes as the plant was drying, and these changes affected the healing action of the drug produced. In the early 20th Century, however, stabilization