Herbal Lesson 02

Introduction to Western Herbalism
Daniel Blankley·Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Plants have been the basis for medical treatments through much of human history, and such traditional medicine is still widely practiced today. Modern medicine recognizes herbalism as a form of alternative medicine, as the practice of herbalism is not strictly based on evidence gathered using the scientific method.

Modern medicine makes use of many plant-derived compounds as the basis for evidence-based pharmaceutical drugs. Although phytotherapy may apply modern standards of effectiveness testing to herbs and medicines derived from natural sources, few high-quality clinical trials and standards for purity or dosage exist. The scope of herbal medicine is sometimes extended to include fungal and bee products, as well as minerals, shells and certain animal parts.

Archaeological evidence indicates that the use of medicinal plants dates back to the Paleolithic age, approximately 60,000 years ago. Written evidence of herbal remedies dates back over 5,000 years, to the Sumerians, who compiled lists of plants. A number of ancient cultures wrote about plants and their medical uses in books called herbals. In ancient Egypt, herbs are mentioned in Egyptian medical papyri, depicted in tomb illustrations, or on rare occasions found in medical jars containing trace amounts of herbs.

Among the oldest, lengthiest, and most important medical papyri of ancient Egypt, the Ebers Papyrus dates from about 1550 BC, and covers more than 700 drugs, mainly of plant origin. The earliest known Greek herbals come from Theophrastus of Eresos who in the 4th c. B.C. wrote in Greek Historia Plantarum, from Diocles of Carystus who wrote during the 3rd century B.C, and from Krateuas who wrote in the 1st century B.C. Only a few fragments of these works have survived intact, but from what remains scholars have noted a large amount of overlap with the Egyptian herbals. Seeds likely used for herbalism have been found in archaeological sites of Bronze Age China dating from the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600 BC–c. 1046 BC). Over a hundred of the 224 drugs mentioned in the Huangdi Neijing, an early Chinese medical text, are herbs.[14] Herbs also commonly featured in the medicine of ancient India, where the principal treatment for diseases was diet.[15] De Materia Medica, originally written in Greek by Pedanius Dioscorides (c. 40 – 90 AD) of Anazarbus, Cilicia, a Greek physician, pharmacologist and botanist, is a particularly important example of herbal writing; it dominated for some 1500 years until the 1600s.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 80 percent of the population of some Asian and African countries presently use herbal medicine for some aspect of primary health care. Pharmaceuticals are prohibitively expensive for most of the world's population, half of whom lived on less than $2 U.S. per day in 2002. In comparison, herbal medicines can be grown from seed or gathered from nature for little or no cost.

Many of the pharmaceuticals currently available to physicians have a long history of use as herbal remedies, including opium, aspirin, digitalis, and quinine. According to the World Health Organization, approximately 25% of modern drugs used in the United States have been derived from plants. At least 7,000 medical compounds in the modern pharmacopoeia are derived from plants. Among the 120 active compounds currently isolated from the higher plants and widely used in modern medicine today, 80% show a positive correlation between their modern therapeutic use and the traditional use of the plants from which they are derived. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbal&#x20;Remedies

There are three main systems of Herbal Medicine which survive in the world today; Western Herbalism, Ayurveda from India, and Traditional Chinese Herbal Medicine. While all three often use the same herbs (with different names) their approach and practice differs greatly.

IN THIS COURSE I will try to present an overall presentation of what we call Western Herbalism in the period of the Common Era 10BCE to the present.

Until the mid 1900s, spiritual and religious beliefs were strongly intermixed in Herbalism and Homeopathy, and it's roots are still there with its foundation in Vitalism. Vitalism is the belief that "living organisms are fundamentally different from non-living entities because they contain some non-physical element or are governed by different principles than are inanimate things". Where vitalism explicitly invokes a vital principle, that element is often referred to as the "vital spark", "energy" or "élan vital", which some equate with the soul.

Vitalism has a long history in medical philosophies: most traditional healing practices posited that disease results from some imbalance in vital forces. In the Western tradition founded by Hippocrates, these vital forces were associated with the four temperaments and humors; Eastern traditions posited an imbalance or blocking of qi or prana. One example of a similar notion in Africa is the Yoruba concept of ase. Today forms of vitalism continue to exist as philosophical positions or a tenet in many religious traditions.

TO FURTHER COMPLICATE THINGS medieval folk also had a strong belief in Astrology. By the time of Nicholas Culpepper's "The English Physician", the famous herbal, the book left no stone unturned. It provided accurate (for its time) descriptions of herbs and how to use them, to treat the body, soul and spirit of man, with the help of Almighty God, and influenced by the astrological signs! God got included because the Holy Bible prominently mentioned herbal medicine from Genesis onward, herbalism was preserved and promoted in all the monasteries, and "The Doctrine of Signatures" was widely accepted. The Doctrine of signatures basically said that every disease had a simple cure and the plant to do it was shaped like the organ it was supposed to heal, because God made it that way so man could take care of himself, no longer being in the Garden of Eden.

It was SO SIMPLE that the idea became known as SIMPLING. If someone had the Flu, one searched the fields and meadows until they found a plant with leaves shaped like a lung, harvested it and used it fresh or dried to make a tisane for the remedy. Simpling also suggested for each disease one plant cure. It was indeed SIMPLE, except that plants generally have multiple properties and may be good for several different ailments.. then they discovered SYNERGY.

Synergy was the discovery that more than one plant combined together in certain ratios was more effective than the sum of several individual (simple) plants... (the total was greater than the sum of its parts). Thi8s was long a fundamental principle of Eastern Herbal methods.

When traditionalists label it Western Herbalism,  one must ask west of where? The answer was west of Jerusalem. Because Christianity was an offspring of the Jewish religion and included the Jewish Torah ( Law of Moses) in the first five books of the later printed Holy Bible. After the Crusades, Jewish herbal medicine and the early church methods was spread from Jerusalem, across Europe and Herbalism was maintained by monasteries.. Indeed many of them also served as hospitals. The Knights Templar in particular carried the practice to its temples being built in Scotland. By the time of Nicholas Culpeper... Culpeper attempted to make medical treatments more accessible to laypersons by educating them about maintaining their health. Ultimately his ambition was to reform the system of medicine by questioning traditional methods and knowledge and exploring new solutions for ill health. The systematization of the use of herbals by Culpeper was a key development in the evolution of modern pharmaceuticals, most of which originally had herbal origins.

Culpeper's emphasis on reason rather than tradition is reflected in the introduction to his Complete Herbal, though his definition of reason was not that different from the Romantic philosophies of the era presenting nature as refuge. He was one of the most well-known astrological botanists of his day, pairing the plants and diseases with planetary influences, countering illnesses with nostrums that were paired with an opposing planetary influence. Combining remedial care with Galenic humoral philosophy and questionable astrology, he forged a strangely workable system of medicine; combined with his "Singles" forceful commentaries, Culpeper was a widely read source for medical treatment in his time.

It is believed Culpeper's Herbal came to America on the Mayflower and other ships to the colonies. Culpeper's translations and approach to using herbals have had an extensive impact on medicine in early North America, and even modern medications. Culpeper was one of the first to translate documents discussing medicinal plants found in the Americas from Latin. His Herbal was held in such esteem that species he described were introduced into the New World from England. Culpeper described the medical use of foxglove, the botanical precursor to digitalis, used to treat heart conditions. His influence is demonstrated by the existence of a chain of "Culpeper" herb and spice shops in the United Kingdom, India and beyond, and by the continued popularity of his remedies among New Age and alternative holistic medicine practitioners.

Today there are two groups of Herbalists. The Purists say herbs are the green stalks, leaves, flowers and seed of plants, while the more eclectic include roots, shrubs, trees, cactus, and even aquatic plant life. By the mid 1700s just before Samuel Hahnemann, Herbalists were so eclectic they were already practicing using Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral substances; necessary if one wanted to create remedies more complex than simple teas and poultices. One cannot make tinctures or salves and ointments without using more than plants. Back then salves were often prepared in a base of animal fat, and pioneer Americans had remedies prepared in Goose Grease and Bear's Grease. The Purists remain, but now, most are some degree of eclectic.

IN THIS COURSE you will use some animal and mineral products to prepare complex medicines which are mostly Herbal. We will include home healing of the pre 20th century which included alcohol, vinegar, baking soda, ammonia, turpentine, lye, camphor, salt and honey among many others.

Herbalism depends on two parts.. the detailed information about each plant and it's properties, along with how to use it; called "Materia Medica" and how to make different applications of treatments which used to be called "The Repertory". Both of these are now included in most single books called THE HERBAL.

IN THIS COURSE You will learn how to make each type of herbal preparation. It is Important to note that the same type of preparation can be made using different herbs as ingredients. Most lessons will share a free video of making the preparation so you can get some DIY "Hands On". WE WILL INCLUDE making herbal Capsules and Lip Balm although these depend on the added mechanism and containers for your preparation.

© Copyright 2018 by Daniel Blankley. All rights reserved.