DEVELOPMENT OF HERBAL MEDICINE:

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DEVELOPMENT OF HERBAL MEDICINE
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Early 19th Century

• From the earliest times, medicinal plants have
  been crucial in sustaining health well-being of
  humans
• E.g. Linum ussitassimum
• Magical abilities medicinal benefit
• X cultures plants souls
• Aristotle Plant Psyche
• Suggestive of an innate plant intelligence?
• (in Western Culture, belief of plant spirits
  survived until first half of the 20th century
  Elder Cocoa)

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Innate Plant Intelligence

• CLIVE BAXTER

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Shamanistic Medicine

• Traditional cultures world created by good
  evil spirits.
• Illness from malignant forces or possession of
  evil spirits (dissatisfaction of spirits)

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Shamanistic Medicine

• Shamans would enter the spirit realm and
  intercede on the patients behalf, using
  hallucinogenic herbs.
• Also provide medical Rx for the physical needs
  (teas, decoctions, ointments, lotions, steams,
  baths, etc)

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Development of Medicinal Lore

• Up until the 20th century, every village rural
  community had a profound understanding of
  medicinal medicine (herbal folklore)
• Tried tested local plants teas, lotions,
  ointments, decoctions, poultices, baths, steams,
  etc.

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Origins of ancient herbal expertise

• Trial error (thousands of years of observation)
• Observing animal habits

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500BC Medicine Breaks From Mystical Origins

• Developed cultures, medicine magic (spiritual
  world) separate.
• Hippocrates
• illness natural ?unnatural process
• Medicine should be given without ceremonies
• Earliest Chinese Medicinal Text Yellow Emperors
  Classic of Internal Medicine 1BC In Rx
  illness, it is necessary to examine the entire
  contextIf one insists on the presence of ghosts
  spirits, one cannot speak of therapeutics.

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300BC-600AD Foundation of Major Herbal
Traditions

• Trade between Europe, Middle East Asia
• Diverse use spreading of medicinal herb use
  knowledge
• E.g. Eugenia caryophyllata
• Dioscorides (1st century Greek physician) wrote
  the 1st European Herbal, De Materia Medica.
• Galen, Roman physician, equally profound
  influence drew inspiration from Hippocrates 4
  humours theory.
• TCM, Eurpean Indian medicinal systems all
  consider illness to be an imbalance within the
  elements of the body aim to restore balance,
  often using herbs.

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Folk Healing in the Middle Ages

• Traditional healers (TCM, AM, UT, TAM etc)
  process of apprenticeship, practice treating
  illness, attending childbirth, using locally
  grown herbs ? high practical medical knowledge.
  
• Underestimated E.g. Khoi-san using Carpobrotus
  spp to strengthen new born babies

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Islamic Indian Medicine 500 1500

• European Dark Ages Golden Age of Islam
• With the decline of Roman Empire, Western
  scholastic medicine knowledge diminished.
• Through the flourishing of Islam in AD 500-1300,
  Classical Greek Roman knowledge was preserved
  elaborated (UT).
• Arabs Expert Pharmacists (Alchemy)
• Contact with West (Europe) East (China
  India), wide range of medicinal herbal
  knowldege
• Avicenna (Ibn Sina) Canon of Medicine
  Distillation

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Central South American Cures

• Similtaneously, Maya, Aztec Inca civilizations
  herbal traditions with profound understanding of
  local medicinal plants
• E.g. Used to grow mould (penicillin) on banana
  skins
• In traditional Cultures medicine religion
  more interwoven than European cultures.
• e.g. Skin disease suffers.

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1000AD-1400AD Rebirth of European Scholarship

• European scholars slowly started studing Arab and
  the sciences they had to offer (Astrology,
  Medicine, Pharmacy, Mathematics Chemistry)

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Re-birth of European Knowledge

• Mosques Used as universities (Muslim,
  Christian, Jewish scholars), including the
  training of Females as physicians.

• Trotula woman who wrote the first book on
  obstetrics.

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Asian Unification

• 14th century unification of whole of Asia (from
  Yellow SeaChina-Black Sea Eastern Europe).
• Mongol rulers (of Asia) strict banning the use
  of X herbs such as Aconite (used as an arrow
  poison).
• Other parts of Asia Vietnam Japan, Chinese
  culture medicine dominated the 1º influence.
• Even Kampoh, traditional herbal medicine of Japan
  (distinctive to Japan), has its roots from TCM.

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Trade between continents 1400-1700

• Middle Ages Trade routes start exapanding ?
  new exotic herbs to Europe.
• E.g. Zingiber officinalis (Zanzibar)
• Elletaria cardamomum (Egypt, Indonesia, India
  Sri Lanka)
• Myristica fragrans
• Curcuma longa (India Indonesia)
• Cinnamomum zeylanicum (Indonesia, Philippines,
  India, West Indies, Japan)
• Cassia senna (Arab peninsulas)
• Salvia officinalis (European ? Yin tonic)

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Health Hygiene 1400 1700

• Huge influx of exotic medicinal plants
  opportunity to observe medical practices of the
  Arabs, Chinese, Japanese Indians ? still
  most unhealthy conditions world has ever seen ?
  Spread of diseases.
• Spread Global Native Americans Indians
• Europe open sewers, overcrowding ignorance ?
  Plague

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European Epidemics

• Plague no cure (herbal/mineral)
• 50 of population perished
• Spread of Europe to Asia (1994).
• Syphilis spread by seafarers
• From Caribbean by Columbus crew in 1490s,
  spreading throughout Europe Rest of the World
  (Asia)

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Plague Cures

• Europe Blindly practised medicine based on
  Galens humoral principles (Indian Chinese
  Medicine evolved from traditional texts).
• European physicians were just as likely to kill
  patients with bloodletting toxic minerals in
  attempts to balance the humous as they were to
  cure.
• Mineral cures became more fashionable
• E.g. mercury cures
• Led to the growth of chemical formulations ?
  scientific/allopathic medicines break from
  herbal medicines

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Plague Doctors Mask
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The influence of Paracelsus

• Paracelsus (1493-1541) rejects Galens 4
  humour theory in favour of detailed observation
• First to pay great attention to dosage It
  depends only on the dose whether a poison is a
  poison or not.
• Influential force in the future development of
  chemistry, conventional medicine, herbal medicine
  homeopathy.

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Father of Chemistry

• Also explored Alchemy, the transmutation of base
  materials into gold the search for immortal
  life.
• Revived interest in the Doctrine of Signatures
  ancient theory plants appearance indicates the
  illnesses it would Rx.

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Culpepper Printed Herbals

• Wounded in the English Civil War, focused on the
  needs of ordinary people who could not afford a
  doctor or imported herbs.
• Influenced by Dioscorides, Arab physicians
  Paracelsus ? developed a medical system blending
  astrology personal knowledge.
• The English Physitian

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The New Rationalism

• New emphasis on chemical cures dismissal of
  vital force concept.
• William Harvey 1628 published his studies on
  how the heart circulated blood throughout the
  body (contrary to Galenic thought).
• Medical science revolution Biochemical
  knowledge of physiology disease processes
• Contrary very little success in developing
  successful cures for medical ailments compared to
  earlier scholars.

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The gap in The Scientific Approach

• Generally, traditional medicine has been
  scientifically lacking, yet it has always been
  ahead of medical science in the way it has been
  applied therapeutically.
• e.g. Vogel (European physician) noting ignorant
  people medical therapeutics (Echinacea)

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Isolating Chemicals

• 1741 1799 Dr William Withering
• Foxglove ? Dropsy
• 1785 Account of the Foxglove case histories
  of the powerful ( potentially dangerous) effects
  of foxglove

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Laboratory Vs Nature

• Early 19th century, lab started to replace Nature
  as the source of medicines.
• 1803 narcotic alkaloids isolated from opium
  poppy (Papaver somniferum)
• 1838 Salicylic acid (forerunner to aspirin)
  isolated from white willow bark (Salix alba)
• From here on, herbal medicine biomedicine are
  to follow separate paths.

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New FrontiersNew Herbal Medicine

• Europeans (colonialists) settled on foreign soils
  (America, India, Africa), away from their
  chemical cures
• E.g. European settlers learning about Agothosma
  betulina from Native Khoi-San people.
• Results New herbs being added to European
  pharmacopoeias.

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Samuel Thomson

• Unorthodox herbal practitioner
• Believed that illness resulted from cold
  (contrary to now conventional thinking)
• Worked well for European settlers on the
  frontiers.
• First form of Naturopathy

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Herbalism Outlawed 1850 - 1900

• Europe conventional medicine seeks to
  establish monopoly
• 1858 British Parliament banns the practice of
  medicine by anyone who has not been trained in a
  conventional medical school.
• Enforced in France, Spain, Italy USA

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20th CENTURY BEYOND

• Science Medicine
• Louis Pasteur germ theory
• Rediscovery of penicillin A. Flemming
• Ascendancy of Biomedicine Americans Europeans
  accustomed to quick-fix. Herbal medicine
  becomes almost extinct in Europe and US
  outlawed (fined/imprisoned)
• The tide turns 1962 Thalidomide (drug taken
  by pregnant mothers to Rx morning sickness) ?
  3000 deformed babies (Germany).
• Turning point in publics opinion of chemical
  medicines (cost to accompany the benefit).

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Bare-foot Doctors

• 1960s Chinas Barefoot Drs blending herbal
  medicine, acupuncture western practices
• Becomes the model for WHO (created a strategy for
  including traditional herbal medicines in
  developing the planning practices of medicine
  in developing countries).

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Changing Attitudes

• Most important factor behind the growing interest
  in complementary medicines is the poor state of
  health in Western developed/modern societies.
• While infectious diseases are controlled, chronic
  diseases are increasing.
• Despite huge amounts spent on health care,
  populations remain unhealthy.
• (quick-fix method short-comings).

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Herbalism Holism

• Medical herbalists Germ theory only fraction of
  the picture
• Many infectious diseases are not automatically
  spread from host-host.
• Herbalism treat the weakness allowing for the
  germ to prosper rather than eradicating the germ.

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Herbal Synergy

• Herbal Synergy The effect of herbs are larger
  than their sum.
• i.e. The effects are due to the energetic
  combination of herbs, not just the action of
  isolated constituents.

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Takeaway

• Intelligence is a concept that is increasingly
  being associated with life in general, and no
  longer limited to humans.