The International Context of Herbal Medicine

Traditional medicine has intrinsic value, and in recognition of this it should be promoted, and its potential development for the wider use, and benefit of mankind.

Herbalisrn is common bond between the peoples and cultures of the world. This shared experience of alleviating humanities suffering through plant medicines bridges cultural divides, religious differences and racial conflicts. The world wide knowledge and wisdom that the herbalist offers is a unique and invaluable resource that cannot be regained once lost. The important and valiant efforts of ethnopharmacologists and others to find healing plants so that patentable drugs may be developed misses the central insight of humanities use of herbs. There is a relationship between a culture and its plant environment, within which the herbalist plays a pivotal role. Herbalism is more than knowledge about healing plants, it is the experience and wisdom that comes from the relationship between humanity and plants.

“Traditional medicine has intrinsic value, and in recognition of this it should be promoted, and its potential developed for the wider use, and benefit of mankind.”

The fundamentally holistic approach of much traditional medicine views the person as a whole being living within a broad ecological-spectrum. The World Health Organization (WHO) has recognized this important insight and is now promoting the development of what it calls traditional medicine. At the 30th World Health Assembly in 1977, the World Health Organization adopted a resolution urging interested governments to give: "adequate importance to the utilization of their traditional systems of medicine, with appropriate regulations as suited for their national health systems."

This led to an worldwide effort by the WHO to enhance traditional medicine in its various forms. Traditional medicine is taken as implying all the knowledge and practices used in the prevention, diagnosis and elimination of physical, mental or social imbalance. These are based on experience and observation handed down from generation to generation, whether by word of mouth or written down. It includes highly developed systems such as Ayurveda from India and the complexities of traditional Chinese Medicine, as well as collections of simple local home remedies.

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