Element_Of_Herbal_Pharmacy

ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF HERBAL PHARMACY
By Ivor Hughes

The use of herbs as healing agents predates recorded history. Investigation of a 60,000 year old paleolithic grave site in Shanidar, Northern Iraq, yielded pollen samples of no less than eight different genera of flowering plants. Many of the species were still official in various pharmacopeias until the mid 1930’s. Therefore to say that ‘herbs are the mother of all medicine’, would not be unreasonable. Herbal therapeutics is a broad term that covers all those systems of medicine in which herbs or their derivatives form an essential part of the therapy, e.g.,