Talk:Herbal medicine

Notes on Archive 1 (June 2007–July2008)

Some of the issues raised in the first archive (permalink) may be less applicable today:

1. The lead and article may be overly long, and jumbled.
2. JamesStewart7 removed some studies, at least one of which was controversial questionable valerian/hops study removed. This may be a misunderstanding on his part; I'm no herbal expert, but herbs prepared with alcohol (in order to get the oil-soluble chemicals, I believe) do not necessarily imply that you consume a lot of alcohol when taking the herb, especially since you consume the herbs in drops.
3. Concerns that the article has degraded (/Archive 1#What Happened?), in which Pixiequix points to (in her opinion) solid references on herbs.
4. Rational Phytotherapy: a physicians Guide To Herbal Medicine: 4th Edition by Volker Schulz, Rudolf Hânsel and Varro E. ISBN:354067963 is suggested as one of the best books on herbs. It may be good to find out the best books on herbs (ones supported by references to scientific research) and put only those in "Further reading" list.

• II 22:39, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Sources to consider

This paper (check bugmenot.com for login info to Medscape) on dietary supplements points to the German monographs as a good source on herbs. They are available here; however, it appears to require registration -- I haven't registered yet. Still, it seems like something that should be noted in the article, no? ImpIn | (t - c) 08:22, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I will be listing some papers and other resources here, along with whether I have access to them.

• PMID 18560132 Systematic review on the efficacy and safety of herbal medicines for Alzheimer's disease. (no access)
• The Use of Herbal Alternative Medicines in Neuropsychiatry (free access)
• The Psychopharmacology of Herbal Medicine: Plant Drugs That Alter Mind, Brain and Behavior

II | (t - c) 07:46, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Bach Flower remedies and Australian Bush remedies

I'm wondering if someone can create articles on Bach Flower remedies and Australian Bush remedies or at least make a mention of them in this article. Thanks.NootherIDAvailable (talk) 02:45, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

This is a wiki. Be bold. Start on it yourself. Just reference your work, and try to make it grammatically correct. II 08:20, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I see there's something at, "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bach_flower_remedies" already. NootherIDAvailable (talk) 03:19, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

picture of violet

Since the caption of the picture discusses the "sweet violet", I replaced the picture of a dog violet with a picture of a sweet violet. It the caption was wrong, please change the caption (including the link,) and change back to the dog violet picture. -Arch dude (talk)

New medicinal herb template

There is a new template at Template:Medicinal herbs & spices. I believe it to be unworkable, as basically all culinary herbs in the Template:Herbs & spices template may also be used for medicinal purposes, and there are thousands of herbs used for strictly medicinal purposes. Badagnani (talk) 02:49, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Books

Please include Rational Phytotherapy: a physicians guide to herbal medicine by Volker Shulz and/or professionals handbook of complementary medicines by charles w fetrow (internationally-orientated books) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.182.189.205 (talk) 08:08, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Criticism

Why is there no criticism section? There are criticisms scattered all over the article, they should be put together so people can easily see. XcepticZP (talk) 20:54, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Systemic Bias against Africa, as usual.

Is Gawo the only medicinal plant in Africa? What about Hoodia? The controversial South Africa umBetshani concoction? Marijuana as used in eg Afrikaner folk medicine? There are thousands of medicines used daily for medicinal and religious purposes, from antimicrobial tree bark infusions to plants that induce lucid dreams in shamans.

This article, like so many others, pretends that the rest of the world stopped existing during the Middle Ages except Europe and the Muslim empire. It's disappointing, and saddening.

Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 06:33, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, one of the beauties of Wiki is that you are free to add this important information to the article, or write a separate article about African herbs. After all, there are only about 3 dozen herbs mentioned so far in this article, out of thousands that are used medicinally. It is not exactly a complete list. Meanwhile, I have added rooibos for starters. --Little Flower Eagle (talk) 19:53, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Merge with or cross-reference to articles on phytotherapy and pharmacognosy

There are also articles on phytotherapy and pharmacognosy. The merger of these articles should be considered. Otherwise, they should refer to one another and be clearly disambiguated. Thomas.Hedden (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:27, 12 March 2009 (UTC).

Hi Thomas.Hedden. My initial response to your comment is on the discussion page of the pharmacognosy article. I do think pharmacognosy should be a separate article that focuses on the more abstract scientific data about herbs. This section would include comprehensive lists of the constituents of each herb, pharmacokinetic data, and so forth. Phytotherapy and/or herbalism should include the clinical/medicinal uses, including both traditional use, as well as substantiation from the medical literature, such asmclinical trials. If herbalism and phytotherapy are kept separate, then herbalism could include the history of herbalism, ethnobotanical information, and so forth. I agree that the focus of each article needs to be clarified. --Little Flower Eagle (talk) 19:39, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

'Traditional medicinal' and 'folk medicine'

The first sentence contains 'traditional medicine' followed by 'folk medicine'. Since folk medicine links to traditional medicine, is there not only potential for confusion between 'traditional medicinal' and 'traditional medicine' moreover, is this not redundant?Apothecia (talk) 08:18, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

The terms in bold in the first sentence of Wikipedia articles, used parenthetically, are synonyms. --KP Botany (talk) 08:31, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Latin Binomials

How about adding the latin binomials (in parentheses) after the common names in the "Examples of Plants Used As Medicine" section. I would be happy to do this if there are no objections. --Little Flower Eagle (talk) 03:58, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely. --KP Botany (talk) 04:37, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd even go further, I would only use the latin names and change all articles to the latin name.

Examples of plants used as medicine

I propose to change this article section; instead of a loose list, I'd recommend grouping to the malady that it treats. A proposed divion is:

• Exterior antiseptic medicine (treatment of burns, skin infections, boils, ...)
• Treatment of mouth problems (tooth ache, Aphthous ulcers, ...)
• Wound treatment and skin rehydration
• Ear treatment medicines
• Eye treatment medicines
• Treatment of respiratory problems
• Treatment of fever (colds, ...)
• Digestion relaxing medicines (stomach, intestins)
• Medicines promoting blood circulation (against clogged and or showing veins, headaches, ...)
• Sterilisation medicines
• Plants hindering pain receptors (eg against headaches, pain of wounds, ...)
• Plants inducing sleep
• Medicines promoting detoxification (blood purification, sweat inducing plants, diuretics, ...)

Note that wound treatment is on a different section than the treatment of skin infections, ... this is because the first is a oil/creamish substance (prone to attracting bacteria/infections) and the second is desinfectant alone (not prone to attracting bacteria but with slower skin regeneration properties). Respiration and fever may be combined but most plants work either on 1 of the 2, so perhaps this is best left as is. Sterilisation can be done by smoking the body with Erythrophleum chlorostachyum, or by consuming plant substance of cymbidium madidum, petalostigma pubescens, Eucalyptus gamophylla. Headaches may be aleviated by 2 types of medicine, one working on the root cause and another simply disabling the pain receptors. Some references need to be found first, I made division based on the book "Bush food:Aboriginal food and herbal medicine by Jennifer Isaacs", and modified it based on own experiences/knowledge The plant examples can be placed in section as examples, full List of plants used as medicine article need to be modified too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.243.190.151 (talk) 08:42, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Sounds too restrictive. Science is continuallyn discovering applications for herbs that don't fit into any of the categories offered.Cayte (talk)

I removed incorrect information about Lascaux cave paintings

I thought this was interesting and wanted to see the picture, so I checked out the French ministry of culture's website. I looked through every picture on the site and found none that contained plants. Then I found a quote on the site that specifically says that none of the pictures depict the outside environs or any plants. This makes some sense, since it was an Ice Age and probably not one of the major eras of development of the art of herbalism.

Anne Merrill (talk) 23:21, 1 October 2009 (UTC)