Until about 200 years ago, plants were the only medication that were available. Herbs were studied and written down and also the ideas they had about the cause of illnesses.
The oldest notes on herbal farmaceuticals, come from the Middle East and stem from 2600 BC.
Also the old Greeks knew their way with plants. They left a lot of recipes and notes on the plantsubstances; plant ingredients. The most well known of this school, is Hippocrates. Hippocrates has left his mark until this day. Think of the oath of Hippocrates.
Shortly after the birth of Christ, Dioscurides described and advised on the use of about 600 plants.The Arabs have taken over this wisdom and expanded much of this knowledge.
In the Middle Ages, medicine was practiced from monasteries. The herbs grew in monastic gardens. Hildegard von Bingen was a famous and gifted abbess and healer and to this day, very well known. She left behind a lot of information on herbs.
In the 16e century, with the advent of the printing press, books about medicinal plants appeared and herbal knowledge became available to a larger audience.
At the beginning of the 19th century, came homeopathy. The founder of homeopathy was Hahnemann. He saw illness as an energetic process that could only be resolved by an other energetic process. That is also the approach of Chinese medicine: re-directing energy towards health.That makes a lot of sense, because everything is energy.
Nowadays, there is only a small place for herbs in regular healthcare. Mostly, a synthetic version of the ingredients of herbs is used. But, our bodies are not synthetic.The whole plant carries the working substance AND the substance against side effects, which the synthetic version lacks. Herbs play a much greater role in complementary medicine. Herbs are used here to stimulate the body to resolve the energetic imbalance or to reduce the symptoms.
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