Getting Back on Track

Following article is taken from "Herbal Defence Against Illness and Ageing" by Robyn Landis and Karta Purkh Singh Khalsa

Fortunately, even as herbal medicine fell out of favour in the West, other cultures continued to study and use botanicals liberally and progressively, and we can now reap the benefits of their experiences and their wisdom.

Interestingly, some of the cultures in which use of herbal medicine has been most prolific may be experiencing serious problems-politically, economically, environmentally-but they don't have the heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, and liver disease that kills nearly all Britons. "It sounds paradoxical that immigrants from a developing country are healthier in many ways than those who grow up here, but other studies have also reached similar conclusions, about other immigrants," said the Berkeley Wellness Letter in July 1995.

In Europe, botanicals have long been considered as important complement to conventional drugs. There doctors routinely prescribe herbal preparations for insomnia, colds, heart problems, constipation, depression and more. Germany in particular leads the way with research and regulation as well as usage.

As healers and patients turn back to natural medicine with renewed interest and hope for more productive views and methods, they are returning to a field much more worldly and refined than it was just a few decades ago.