Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Herbs that typically grew in the wild were accessible to the local population therefore, herbalism was a field not only dominated by scholars. Not only did Herbalists find the use of wild-grown herbs, but they also found the use of natural herbs that acted as drugs for major surgeries or for psychoactive use.
In China and the Arab world, the Greco-Roman work on medicinal plants was preserved and extended. In Europe, the Renaissance of the 14th–17th centuries heralded a scientific revival during which botany gradually emerged from natural history as an independent science, distinct from medicine and agriculture.
In Europe, apothecaries stocked herbal ingredients as traditional medicines. In the Latin names for plants created by Linnaeus , the word officinalis indicates that a plant was used in this way. For example, the marsh mallow has the classification Althaea officinalis , as it was traditionally used as an emollient to soothe ulcers . [ 2 ]
The use of plants for medicinal purposes, and their descriptions, dates back two to three thousand years. [10] [11] The word herbal is derived from the mediaeval Latin liber herbalis ("book of herbs"): [2] it is sometimes used in contrast to the word florilegium, which is a treatise on flowers [12] with emphasis on their beauty and enjoyment rather than the herbal emphasis on their utility. [13]
An example of a herbal medicine resource: the bark of the cinchona tree contains quinine, which today is a widely prescribed treatment for malaria. The unpurified bark is still used by some who cannot afford to purchase more expensive antimalarial drugs.
Medicinal plants, also called medicinal herbs, have been discovered and used in traditional medicine practices since prehistoric times. Plants synthesize hundreds of chemical compounds for various functions, including defense and protection against insects , fungi , diseases , against parasites [ 2 ] and herbivorous mammals .
The work is dedicated to "the perfect knowledge and understanding of all kinds of herbs and their gracious virtues" [notes 11] and incorporates a number of novelties: a register of chapters in Latin and English, an anatomical diagram showing the names of different human bones, a section devoted to 25 treatments presented as "innovative" or a ...
Many herbs and minerals used in Ayurveda were described by ancient Indian herbalists such as Charaka and Sushruta during the 1st millennium BC. [4] The first Chinese herbal book was the Shennong Bencaojing , compiled during the Han dynasty but dating back to a much earlier date, which was later augmented as the Yaoxing Lun ( Treatise on the ...