Herbal treatments for common presentations

摘要

Herbal medicine is undoubtedly the oldest form of medicine, with thousands of years of history behind it. The discovery of medicinal plants may have occurred in a number of ways. Prehistoric people may have found therapeutic principles by trial and error, or perhaps by watching animals "treat" themselves by eating certain plants when ill (forming the basis for the field of zoopharmacognosy). Herbs represent one of the first pharmacologic interventions attempted by healers, and even today, 25% of conventional drugs are plant derived. The World Health Organization states that 74% of these plant derived medicines have modern indications that correlate with their traditional, cultural (and sometimes ancient) uses. Because herbal therapeutics have proven efficacious by the standards of both history and modern medicine, plant medicines are the subject of close scrutiny by major drug companies.