Herbalism - What is it and Why Do I Need to Know?
The first Chinese manual of herbalism, which laid the foundation of Traditional Chinese Medicine, was compiled in approximately 206 B.
C.
It listed about 365 individual herbs and outlined principles of herbal combinations for maximum health.
Humans and animals on all continents have used thousands of indigenous plants since the beginning of their existence.
Anthropologists theorize that animals evolved a tendency to seek out bitter plant parts in response to illness.
The first use of plants as healing agents was documented in the cave paintings discovered in the Lascaux caves in France, which have been radiocarbon-dated to 13,000-25,000 BC.
Medicinal herbs were found in the personal effects of an Ice man, whose body was frozen in the Swiss Alps for more than 5,300 years.
These herbs appear to have been used to treat the parasites found in his intestines.
In spite of the long history of herbalism as an effective medicinal remedy Western Medicine has hijacked health care in the majority of countries.
And in spite of the reported-albeit-only in the back pages of a few publications-dismal results from Western Medicine, the use of Western Medicine continues to proliferate.
Drs.
Gary Null, Carolyn Dean, Martin Feldman, Debora Rasio and Dorothy Smith, authors of "Death by Medicine" report in their groundbreaking research that 783,936 people die every year in the United States from conventional medicine mistakes.
This is the equivalent of six jumbo jet crashes a day for a year.
Of the 783,936 annual deaths due to conventional medical procedures, about 106,000 are from prescription drugs, according to Death by Medicine.
That is a conservative number, because of underreported cases of adverse drug reactions some experts estimate that approximately 200,000 deaths occur annually.
This staggering number is a significant increase in the number of deaths reported by The Journal of the American Medical Association Vol.
284 July 26, 2000, documenting the tragedy of Traditional Western Medicine (TWM) paradigm.
The author, Dr.
Barbara Starfield of Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health describes how the U.
S.
health care system may contribute to poor health.
Doctors, she stated, are the third leading cause of death in the U.
S.
, causing 250,000 deaths every year.
How has this paradigm become imbedded in the human psyche to the degree that herbalism is relegated to 'alternative medicine' and something to be feared? Forty percent of Americans(1) take at least one prescription pill daily.
These drugs do not solve any physical problems.
Pharmaceuticals at best mask the symptoms.
Why then is the pharmaceutical industry growing every single year, with some of the biggest, if not the biggest, profit margins of any industry? The answer to this uncommon question, undoubtedly lies in western commercialism and economic greed.
Pharmaceuticals companies claim they need large earnings - 125,835,595,000 in 1999 (2) - to conduct research and development.
This justification loses credibility when: 1.
One out of every five dollars the Pharmaceutical industry collects goes to drug research.
2.
Some Pharmaceuticals companies spend almost twice as much money for advertising and marketing as they spend for research.
3.
Pharmaceuticals industry profits are so large they outstrip every other industry's profits by far (3).
Pharmaceuticals companies are the most profitable industry.
In 2001, which reported a drop in employment rates, a plunge in the stock market and symbols of America's economy come crashing down, the Pharmaceuticals companies continued their reign as the most profitable industry in the annual Fortune 500 list.
While the overall profits of Fortune 500 companies declined by 53%, which was the second biggest dive in profits the Fortune 500 has taken in its forty-seven years, the top ten U.
S.
Pharmaceuticals companies increased their profits by 33% (3).
Collectively, the ten Pharmaceuticals companies in the Fortune 500 topped all three of the Fortune magazine's measures of company profitability for 2001, according to the magazine's annual analysis of America's most important companies.
These Pharmaceuticals companies had the greatest return on revenues, reporting a profit of 18.
5 cents for every $1 of sales, which was 8 times higher than the median for all Fortune 500 industries, easily surpassing the next most profitable industry, which was commercial banking with a 13.
5% return on revenue) (3) In addition to taking a long list of prescriptions many people also use natural remedies.
The World Health Organization, estimates that between 65 to 80 percent of the world's population (about 3 billion people) rely on naturopathic or homeopathic medicine as their primary form of health care.
" Worldwide, only ten to thirty percent of people use traditional medicine, 70 to 90 percent use naturopathic and homeopathic health care.
" Seventy-four percent of the American population desires a natural approach to health care.
" Of the one out of three Americans who say they have used natural techniques, eighty-four percent said they would use it again.
" Traditional Chinese Medicine has been chosen by the World Health Organization for worldwide propagation to meet the health care needs of the twenty-first century.
" The U.
S.
government sponsors the use of acupuncture in drug rehabilitation programs.
" "In a [Mayo Clinic] study of fifty patients, six acupuncture treatments given over two to three weeks significantly improved their symptoms of pain and fatigue.
" Time, 2005 " "Americans make more visits to holistic health care providers (some 600 million a year) than to M.
D.
s and spend more money out-of-pocket to do so about $30 billion a year by recent estimates.
" Newsweek, 12/2002 " "A recent study performed by the American Massage Therapy Association revealed that twenty-eight percent of people received a massage from a massage therapist in the past five years, up from seventeen percent in 1997.
Eighteen percent said they had a massage in the past twelve months.
That's ten percent higher than was reported in 1997.
" American Massage Therapy Association, 8/2002 Of the thousands of medicinal herbs available today, twenty-nine are the most frequently sought after.
Popularity does not necessarily translate into the most useful for all issues.
Some herbal gems, which have not generated much "buzz," are highly effective and some wildly popular herbs are not the most beneficial in their class.
It is important to get the advise of an herbologist to make sure you are using the correct herbs for your issues.
(1) Bowman, L.
51% Of U.
S.
Adults Take 2 Pills or More a Day, Survey Reports (Scripps Howard News Service).
San Diego Union-Tribune, Weds.
, Jan.
17, 2001:A8.
(2) Angell, "Is Academic Medicine for Sale?", p.
128.
(3) Public Citizen April 18, 2002
C.
It listed about 365 individual herbs and outlined principles of herbal combinations for maximum health.
Humans and animals on all continents have used thousands of indigenous plants since the beginning of their existence.
Anthropologists theorize that animals evolved a tendency to seek out bitter plant parts in response to illness.
The first use of plants as healing agents was documented in the cave paintings discovered in the Lascaux caves in France, which have been radiocarbon-dated to 13,000-25,000 BC.
Medicinal herbs were found in the personal effects of an Ice man, whose body was frozen in the Swiss Alps for more than 5,300 years.
These herbs appear to have been used to treat the parasites found in his intestines.
In spite of the long history of herbalism as an effective medicinal remedy Western Medicine has hijacked health care in the majority of countries.
And in spite of the reported-albeit-only in the back pages of a few publications-dismal results from Western Medicine, the use of Western Medicine continues to proliferate.
Drs.
Gary Null, Carolyn Dean, Martin Feldman, Debora Rasio and Dorothy Smith, authors of "Death by Medicine" report in their groundbreaking research that 783,936 people die every year in the United States from conventional medicine mistakes.
This is the equivalent of six jumbo jet crashes a day for a year.
Of the 783,936 annual deaths due to conventional medical procedures, about 106,000 are from prescription drugs, according to Death by Medicine.
That is a conservative number, because of underreported cases of adverse drug reactions some experts estimate that approximately 200,000 deaths occur annually.
This staggering number is a significant increase in the number of deaths reported by The Journal of the American Medical Association Vol.
284 July 26, 2000, documenting the tragedy of Traditional Western Medicine (TWM) paradigm.
The author, Dr.
Barbara Starfield of Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health describes how the U.
S.
health care system may contribute to poor health.
Doctors, she stated, are the third leading cause of death in the U.
S.
, causing 250,000 deaths every year.
How has this paradigm become imbedded in the human psyche to the degree that herbalism is relegated to 'alternative medicine' and something to be feared? Forty percent of Americans(1) take at least one prescription pill daily.
These drugs do not solve any physical problems.
Pharmaceuticals at best mask the symptoms.
Why then is the pharmaceutical industry growing every single year, with some of the biggest, if not the biggest, profit margins of any industry? The answer to this uncommon question, undoubtedly lies in western commercialism and economic greed.
Pharmaceuticals companies claim they need large earnings - 125,835,595,000 in 1999 (2) - to conduct research and development.
This justification loses credibility when: 1.
One out of every five dollars the Pharmaceutical industry collects goes to drug research.
2.
Some Pharmaceuticals companies spend almost twice as much money for advertising and marketing as they spend for research.
3.
Pharmaceuticals industry profits are so large they outstrip every other industry's profits by far (3).
Pharmaceuticals companies are the most profitable industry.
In 2001, which reported a drop in employment rates, a plunge in the stock market and symbols of America's economy come crashing down, the Pharmaceuticals companies continued their reign as the most profitable industry in the annual Fortune 500 list.
While the overall profits of Fortune 500 companies declined by 53%, which was the second biggest dive in profits the Fortune 500 has taken in its forty-seven years, the top ten U.
S.
Pharmaceuticals companies increased their profits by 33% (3).
Collectively, the ten Pharmaceuticals companies in the Fortune 500 topped all three of the Fortune magazine's measures of company profitability for 2001, according to the magazine's annual analysis of America's most important companies.
These Pharmaceuticals companies had the greatest return on revenues, reporting a profit of 18.
5 cents for every $1 of sales, which was 8 times higher than the median for all Fortune 500 industries, easily surpassing the next most profitable industry, which was commercial banking with a 13.
5% return on revenue) (3) In addition to taking a long list of prescriptions many people also use natural remedies.
The World Health Organization, estimates that between 65 to 80 percent of the world's population (about 3 billion people) rely on naturopathic or homeopathic medicine as their primary form of health care.
" Worldwide, only ten to thirty percent of people use traditional medicine, 70 to 90 percent use naturopathic and homeopathic health care.
" Seventy-four percent of the American population desires a natural approach to health care.
" Of the one out of three Americans who say they have used natural techniques, eighty-four percent said they would use it again.
" Traditional Chinese Medicine has been chosen by the World Health Organization for worldwide propagation to meet the health care needs of the twenty-first century.
" The U.
S.
government sponsors the use of acupuncture in drug rehabilitation programs.
" "In a [Mayo Clinic] study of fifty patients, six acupuncture treatments given over two to three weeks significantly improved their symptoms of pain and fatigue.
" Time, 2005 " "Americans make more visits to holistic health care providers (some 600 million a year) than to M.
D.
s and spend more money out-of-pocket to do so about $30 billion a year by recent estimates.
" Newsweek, 12/2002 " "A recent study performed by the American Massage Therapy Association revealed that twenty-eight percent of people received a massage from a massage therapist in the past five years, up from seventeen percent in 1997.
Eighteen percent said they had a massage in the past twelve months.
That's ten percent higher than was reported in 1997.
" American Massage Therapy Association, 8/2002 Of the thousands of medicinal herbs available today, twenty-nine are the most frequently sought after.
Popularity does not necessarily translate into the most useful for all issues.
Some herbal gems, which have not generated much "buzz," are highly effective and some wildly popular herbs are not the most beneficial in their class.
It is important to get the advise of an herbologist to make sure you are using the correct herbs for your issues.
(1) Bowman, L.
51% Of U.
S.
Adults Take 2 Pills or More a Day, Survey Reports (Scripps Howard News Service).
San Diego Union-Tribune, Weds.
, Jan.
17, 2001:A8.
(2) Angell, "Is Academic Medicine for Sale?", p.
128.
(3) Public Citizen April 18, 2002