How Natural Herbal Remedies & Medicines Came to Be

The use of natural herbal remedies for medicinal purposes goes back more than 3000 years, and today, more than 80% of the world's population uses these methods to treat ailments of all kinds.

The concept is fairly simple. Find a natural element in the environment, ingest it. See what kind of affect - good or bad - it has on the ailment from which you suffer. Each and every part of the plant, from the seed to the flower, has been used throughout the history of herbal medicine. Natural remedies have been delivered in so many versions - raw, brewed in with tea, topical ointments, and pills. Originally, the uses for these plants were determined by superstitious cues, based upon the plants likeness to a particular body part or because it grew in a particular area. Over time, the practice became more refined. To the point that many prescription drugs available today actually contain extracts of the herbal medicines.

This simple concept has evolved into a very complex practice that today effectively treats everything from heart disease to headaches, and depression to the common cold. The first practitioners of natural herbal remedies likely used marshmallow root, which is a grass that can be chewed to treat a sick stomach. Strangely enough, this is probably a practice learned from primates. Who says we come from apes? Similarly, these first users may have used hyacinth as a diuretic to purge the body of excess water.

As the body of knowledge grew on what plants were effective in treating certain ailments, the practice of cultivating these plants became an ever more important role in human society. Eventually, these herbalists began to keep track of what was prescribed and to whom and this knowledge was passed on from generation to generation and to all subsequent forms of conquering societies. As such, these herbal remedies were first systematized by the Egyptians; and then by the Greeks. It is the Greeks, in fact, that we have to thank for what amounts to the foundation of modern medicine. They introduced the concept of not only prescribing these herbal remedies, but also recording both the prescription and the result of treatment.

All around the world, cultures have searched the environment for their own natural remedy versions. Herbalists in India combined the herbs with parts of animals to create medicinal concoctions. In the Americas, the hunt for herbal remedies was driven by spirituality and different tribes collected herbal remedies and passed the knowledge on to other tribes through oral tradition. And in China, where we find the first written record of herbal medicine, herbalist paired natural remedies with acupuncture to balance the 'life force energies'.

From its beginning as a primate activity, herbal medicine has ridden the roller coaster of being acceptance and rejection by traditional medical field. The use of natural remedies has been documented for over 3000 years, and in addition to the thousands of years of human testing, the practice has withstood intense scrutiny and real world testing. Though studies continue and remedies continue to alter, herbal medicine has stood the test of time as an effective means of helping humans stay healthy.