| History of Herbal Medicine
Early humans recognized their dependence on nature in both health and
illness. Led by instinct, taste, and experience, primitive men and women
treated illness by using plants, animal parts, and minerals that were
not part of their usual diet. Physical evidence of use of herbal remedies
goes back some 60,000 years to a burial site of a Neanderthal man uncovered
in 1960 (Solecki, 1975). In a cave in northern Iraq, scientists found
what appeared to be ordinary human bones. An analysis of the soil around
the bones revealed extraordinary quantities of plant pollen that could
not have been introduced accidentally at the burial site. Someone in the
small cave community had consciously gathered eight species of plants
to surround the dead man. Seven of these are medicinal plants still used
throughout the herbal world (Bensky and Gamble, 1993). All cultures have
long folk medicine histories that include the use of plants. Even in ancient
cultures, people methodically and scientifically collected information
on herbs and developed well-defined herbal pharmacopoeias. Indeed, well
into the 20th century much of the pharmacopoeia of scientific medicine
was derived from the herbal lore of native peoples. Many drugs, including
strychnine, aspirin, vincristine, ~taxol, curare, and ergot, are of herbal
origin. About one-quarter of the prescription drugs dispensed by community
pharmacies in the United States contain at least one active ingredient
derived from plant material (Farnsworth and Morris, 1976). Middle East
medicine. The invention of writing was a focus around which herbal knowledge
could accumulate and grow. The first written records detailing the use
of herbs in the treatment of illness are the Mesopotamian clay tablet
writings and the Egyptian papyrus. About 2000 B.C., King Assurbanipal
of Sumeria ordered the compilation of the first known materia medica--an
ancient form of today's United States Pharmacopoeia--containing 250 herbal
drugs (including garlic, still a favorite of herbal doctors). The Ebers
Papyrus, the most important of the preserved Egyptian manuscripts, was
written around 1500 B.C. and includes much earlier information. It contains
876 prescriptions made up of more than 500 different substances, including
many herbs (Ackerknecht, 1973). Greece and Rome. One of the earliest materia
medica was the Rhizotomikon, written by Diocles of Caryotos, a pupil of
Aristotle. Unfortunately, the book is now lost. Other Greek ~and Roman
compilations followed, but none was as important or influential as that
written by Dioscorides in the 1st century A.D., better known by its Latin
name De Materia Medica. This text contains 950 curative substances, of
which 600 are plant products and the rest are of animal or mineral origin
(Ackerknecht, 1973). Each entry includes a drawing, a description of the
plant, an account of its medicinal qualities and method of preparation,
and warnings about undesirable effects. Muslim world. The Arabs preserved
and built on the body of knowledge of the Greco-Roman period as they learned
of new remedies from remote places. They even introduced to the West the
Chinese technique of chemically preparing minerals. The principal storehouse
of the Muslim materia medica is the text of Jami of Ibn Baiar (died 1248
A.D.), which lists more than 2,000 substances, including many plant products
(Ackerknecht, 1973). Eventually this entire body of knowledge was reintroduced
to Europe by Christian doctors traveling with the Crusaders. Indeed, during
the Middle Ages, trade in herbs became a vast international commerce.
~East India. India, located between China and the West, underwent a similar
process in the development of its medicine. The healing that took place
before India's Ayurvedic medical corpus was similar to that of ancient
Egypt or China (i.e., sickness was viewed as a punishment from the gods
for a particular sin). Ayurvedic medicine emerged during the rise of the
philosophies of the Upanishads, Buddhism, and other schools of thought
in India. Herbs played an important role in Ayurvedic medicine. The principal
Ayurvedic book on internal medicine, the Characka Samhita, describes 582
herbs (Majno, 1975). The main book on surgery, the Sushruta Samhita, lists
some 600 herbal remedies. Most experts agree that these books are at least
2,000 years old. China and Japan. The earliest written evidence of the
medicinal use of herbs in China consists of a corpus of 11 medical works
recovered from a burial site in Hunan province. The burial itself is dated
168 B.C., and the texts (written on silk) appear to have been composed
before the end of the 3rd century B.C. Some of the texts discuss exercise,
diet, and channel therapy (in the form of moxibustion--see the "Alternative
Systems of Medical Practice" chapter). The largest, clearest, and most
important of these manuscripts, called by ~its discoverers Prescriptions
for Fifty-Two Ailments, is predominantly a pharmacological work. More
than 250 medicinal substances are named. Most are substances derived from
herbs and wood; grains, legumes, fruits, vegetables, and animal parts
are also mentioned. Underlying this entire text is the view that disease
is the manifestation of evil spirits, ghosts, and demons that must be
repelled by incantation, rituals, and spells in addition to herbal remedies.
By the Later Han Dynasty (25-220 A.D.), medicine had changed dramatically
in China. People grew more confident of their ability to observe and understand
the natural world and believed that health and disease were subject to
the principles of natural order. However, herbs still played an important
part in successive systems of medicine. The Classic of the Materia Medica,
compiled no earlier than the 1st century A.D. by unknown authors, was
the first Chinese book to focus on the description of individual herbs.
It includes 252 botanical substances, 45 mineral substances, and 67 animal-derived
substances. For each herb there is a description of its medicinal effect,
usually in terms of symptoms. Reference is made to the proper method of
preparation, and toxicities are noted (Bensky and Gamble, 1993).~Since
the writing of the Classic of the Materia Medica almost 2,000 years ago,
the traditional Chinese materia medica have been steadily increasing in
number. This increase has resulted from the integration into the official
tradition of substances from China's folk medicine as well as from other
parts of the world. Many substances now used in traditional Chinese medicine
originate in places such as Southeast Asia, India, the Middle East, and
the Americas. The most recent compilation of Chinese materia medica was
published in 1977. The Encyclopedia of Traditional Chinese Medicine Substances
(Zhong yao da ci dian), the culmination of a 25-year research project
conducted by the Jiangsu College of New Medicine, contains 5,767 entries
and is the most definitive compilation of China's herbal tradition to
date (Bensky and Gamble, 1993). Traditional Chinese medicine was brought
to Japan via Korea, and Chinese-influenced Korean medicine was adapted
by the Japanese during the reign of Emperor Ingyo (411-453 A.D.). Medical
envoys continued to arrive from Korea throughout the next century, and
by the time of the Empress Suiko (592-628 A.D.), Japanese envoys were
being sent directly to China to study medicine. Toward the end of the
Muromachi period (1333-1573 A.D.) the ~Japanese began to develop their
own form of traditional oriental medicine, called kampo medicine. As traditional
Chinese medicine was modified and integrated into kampo medicine, herbal
medicine was markedly simplified.
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