Herbal remedies can be used for a great variety of minor sicknesses that are amenable to self-medication, including stomach upset, the common cold, flus, minor aches and pains, constipation and diarrhea, coughs, headaches, menstrual cramps, digestive disturbances, sore muscles, skin rashes, sunburn, dandruff, and insomnia. A growing number of American health consumers use herbal remedies for these conditions, which have been traditionally the domain of the nonprescription or over-the-counter drugs.

 Herbal medicine can also help in such conditions as digestive disorders  (peptic ulcers, colitis and irritable bowel syndrome); rheumatic and arthritic conditions; chronic skin problems (eczema and psoriasis); problems of the menstrual cycle and especially premenstrual syndrome; anxiety and tension-related stress; respiratory conditions (bronchitis and other); hypertension; and allergies.

  Herbal medicines can also be used for a number of conditions normally treated by prescription only. For example: milk thistle seed extract for use in cirrhosis and hepatitis; or the use of hawthorn as a heart tonic. This herb is highly recommended for cardiac patients by physicians in Germany. 

 Mary Bove, N.D., L.M., head of the Department of Botanical Medicine at Bastyr College of Natural Health Sciences, in Seattle, Washington says, that  it is very important to treat the entire body,  when treating chronic illness with herbal medicine, because the illness may be simultaneously affecting many systems of the body at various levels. The course of the treatment must include nutritional, tonic, and restorative plants in conjunction with herbs that support the body's elimination functions. They find the alterative and adaptogenic plants to be very effective. Digestive function is also an important consideration in most chronic diseases. The duration of treatment is often longer, with a constant dose of the remedy being given over a longer period of time.

  Dr. Bove recalls a thirty-eight-year-old patient who came to see him. She  suffered from a ten-year-old colitis. She had been seen by several M.D.'s and N.D.'s over the past decade with some improvement. After discussing her long history, Dr. Bove chose to treat her from a different perspective. First of all he gave her digestive nervines and tonic herbs like catnip, lemon balm, and tilia flowers. Within three days, she went from eleven stools per day to two per day. He continued with these herbs, adding some others for gut curing. They had excellent results which were supported by diagnostic imaging.

  David Hoffmann, B.Sc., M.N.I.M.H., past President of the American Herbalists Guild, used herbal medicine to treat arthritic conditions. Once he was visited by a forty-two-year-old woman with rheumatoid arthritis, confined to a wheelchair due to extreme and almost constant pain and swelling. Her   treatment involved herbal medicine and a reevaluation of her diet and lifestyle. Herbs were selected initially to ease the digestive problems caused by medications she was taking and to help her sleep. When such side effects were alleviated, a program was started  and she could completely abandon the wheelchair after six months. Though she still had some arthritic pain, she was able to live with it comfortably.

  The uniqueness of each individual is important in evaluating any holistic therapy, whether it be homeopathic, herbal, or nutritional. In order to prescribe effectively, it is critical that a physician be knowledgeable and adaptable to each patient's individual situation. John Sherman, N.D., of the Portland Naturopathic Clinic in Oregon recollects a woman he treated who came to his clinic complaining of heart palpitations. She was also concerned about the drugs she'd been prescribed for her heart arrhythmia. She told Dr. Sherman that the drugs had been "sapping" her energy and only partially helping her heart problem. Dr. Sherman prescribed a combination herbal tincture of cactus, hawthorn, valerian, and lily of the valley, which is a standard combination naturopathic physicians use to combat arrhythmia and a "feeble" heart. He also analyzed her diet to determine her intake of specific minerals which affect the heart, including calcium, potassium, and sodium.

  Two weeks later, she returned to Dr. Sherman still complaining of heart palpitations and feeling even more frustrated. Dr. Sherman decided to change the herbal formula slightly by adding scotch broom. Within a few days, she happily reported the absence of any heart symptoms and was subsequently able to get rid of the prescription drugs.

 

  There is a great variety of herbal traditions all over the world, most of which still prosper today. Native American cultures contain a cornucopia of curing wisdom as do European traditions, from the Welsh to the Sicilian. There are a number of highly developed medical systems around the world that use medicinal plants in their curing work. These include ancient systems such as Ayurveda from India and Traditional Chinese Medicine. The essential differences between these various systems of medicine are their cultural contexts rather than their goals or effects.

Traditional Chinese Medicine:	The restoration of harmony is integral to Chinese herbal medicine. Harmonious balance is expressed in terms of the two complementary forces-yin and yang; and the five elements-fire, earth, metal, water, and wood. The five elements are of particular importance to the Chinese herbalist; they give rise to the five tastes by which all medicinal plants are evaluated. Fire gives rise to bitterness, earth to sweetness, metal to acridity, water to saltiness, and wood to sourness. Each taste is said to have a particular medicinal action: bitter-tasting herbs drain and dry; sweet herbs tonify and may reduce pain; acrid herbs disperse; salty herbs nourish the kidneys; sour herbs nourish the yin and astringe, preventing unwanted loss of body fluids or qi. Herbs that have none of these tastes are described as bland-a quality that indicates that the plant may have a diuretic effect. The taste of a plant can also indicate the organ to which it has a natural affinity. Besides defining particular herbal tastes, the Chinese ascribe different temperatures to herbs-hot, warm, neutral, cool, and cold.
Ayurveda:	Ayurvedic medicine has ancient roots in the Indian subcontinent. It also recognizes five elements: ether, fire, water, air, and earth. These five elements manifest themselves in the body to form the tridosha or three basic humors: vata (the principle of air or movement); pitta (the principle of fire); and kapha (the principle of water). Ayurvedic medicine sees all universal energies as having their counterparts within the human being. The healing process seeks to achieve in individuals a balance between the elements of air or wind (vata), fire or bile(pitta), and water or phlegm(kapha).   According to ayurvedic medicine, the taste of any herb is indicative of its properties. The Sanskrit word for taste, rasa, means "essence." There are six essences: sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter, and astringent. For example, pungent, sour, and salty-tasting herbs cause heat and so increase pitta (fire); sweet, bitter, and astringent herbs have precisely the opposite effect, cooling and decreasing pitta. As in Chinese herbal medicine, Ayurvedic texts categorize all plants according to this system, so that their herbalists can prescribe herbs more easily.
Western medicine:	The use of medicinal plants is also fundamental to Western society's pharmacologically based approach to medicine. The majority of medicinal drug groups were discovered or developed from the plant kingdom, even if they are now manufactured synthetically. However, most modern health professionals view medicines as biochemical "magic bullets," which should be expected to provide instant results. This approach has been very successful in certain areas, such as the treatment of acute illness, but has major limitations when it comes to chronic or degenerative disease.