History of Herbal Medicine – Part II
From historical treatment of the intertwined subjects of herbs and plant based medicine we come right now to biological backgrounds, but initially a historical look of events triggering modern methods and the following rise of the current trend of alternative and complimentary health movement.
The Middle Ages found little that have changed on the applications of plants as references which are free were Greek and Roman inside origination preserved from manuscripts in monasteries. Hence rendering monasteries as types of local health authorities. Folk medicine as it was then known was a form of outsider with its’ activities limited to the house as well as villages. This provided a support base and abode of sorts for all the eras herbalists. Thus rose the so named witchcraft whereby herbs happened to be administered with spells as well as chants. The knowledgeable’ wise-women’ of the time ended up being targeted for Inquisitions spearhead by the all effective Catholic Church. A famous herbalist of the time Hildegard of Bingen as well as a Benedictine nun, wrote a medical reference identified as Causes and Cure
The East West connection gradually seeped into the socio-cultural and political lifetime of medieval Europe especially with the development of the Islamic Empires (9th 13th centuries) that had inherited the Greco Roman tradition and learning and that in it’s turn had created on the long time defunct Ancient Egypt Sumerian super civilizations. Empirical tactics in the assessment, description as well as identification of several materia medica were introduced thus paving the way for modern pharmacology sciences.
On and kratom near me franklin tn; kirklandreporter.com, this period texts like The Canon of Medicine (authored by Avicienna). The Book of Simples, Corpus of Simples, written by Moorish Islamic herbalists, were created and fast evolved into the authoritative pharmacology work references of the day. Subsequent European (as opposed to the predecessor Moorish Islam authors) authored Commentary on Isaac along with Commentary on the Antedatory of Nicholas among others made their appearance on and around this period of time.
Folk medicine (as herbalism was commonly known then) continued to thrive alongside the canonized systems in place. Herbal plants have been no less very important to the decades following the Middle Ages as indicated by the huge selection of herbals (medicinal plants texts) posted following the invention of printing in the fifteenth century. Theophrastus’ Historia Plantarum was one of the first books being printed. Dioscorides’ De Materia Medica, Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine and Avenzoar’s pharmacopoeia were soon to follow shortly therefore.
A much more later period from 15th to 17th century was an era characterized by translations into English of excellent pioneering works on herbals. Grete Herball, the Herball or General History of Plants (the latter 2 by John Gerard and Nicholas Culpeper respectively) saw the light of the morning between 1526-1597. The Badianus Manuscript(16th century) was a latter day Latin translation of an illustrated Aztec organic.
Specific historically significant events however place a halt to these advancements and subsequently gave rise to the gradual erosion of the position held by plants as sources of therapeutic effects. Chief among these events was the infamous Black Death which proved powerless to stop. This in turn paved way for the introduction of energetic chemical drugs chief among them remaining arsenic, iron, copper sulfate, mercury and sulphur. This was a lot more as desperate actions to combat the health scourges of the day as Syphilis as the drugs had been in themselves harmful with big side effects. These ushered in the era of the dominating health systems of modern chemical medication that we presently get ourselves in these days.