CHAPTER 1 Introduction: Why Use Herbs?
Why use an herb when we have available to us established, effective treatments for so many medical conditions? Most herbalists would answer this way: When conventional treatments are both safe and effective, they should be used. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case for many serious chronic medical conditions—chronicity is virtually defined by the fact that medicine isn’t working. Herbs represent an additional tool for the toolbox. For some, the fact that animals have been thought to treat themselves using herbs is reason enough to try them. For some herbalists, herbs also represent a different approach to the practice of medicine, that is, using the complex formulas “developed” by plants over millennia in relationship with the rest of the beings on the planet. These combinations of chemicals nourish, heal, and kill, but by using rational combinations in the practice of medicine, herbalists believe they attain longer lasting, more profound improvements (Box 1-1).
BOX 1-1 Reasons Whole Herbs Are Preferred to Isolated Active Constituents
HERBS ARE NOT SIMPLY “UNREFINED DRUGS”
Complex Drugs With Complex Actions
The “active constituents” of Saint John’s Wort and their studied actions include the following (Butterweck, 2003; Simmen, 2001):